AEW Star Matt Hardy recently spoke on his podcast, “Extreme Life of Matt Hardy,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including the debut of Mercedes Mone in AEW:
“I liked it. Looking back in hindsight, I wish it would have been advertised, and that’s not even looking back in hindsight. I wish it would have been advertised before she was there because I know the deal. It was to mirror Punk’s debut whenever he showed up in Chicago at AEW Rampage. I feel like the thing with Mercedes, I feel like it would have been even more impactful if you would have just went ahead and got it out there and that would have been for the casual fans. Yes, there are casual fans, people who don’t read everything online and who don’t keep up with the intricate details of pro wrestling. Those are what I consider casual fans. I would have hammered it home like, Mercedes Mone is going to be debuting. ‘Oh, that’s the girl who was Sasha Banks. It’s her. She’s going to be at AEW.’ That would be my only criticism of it. Once again, it was done great. I’m glad she started the show and kicked it off. I would have liked to have seen her used throughout the show a little more, especially if she was going to come back at the end. I feel like you make this the Mercedes Mone show more than anything else, you know, make it a thread throughout the show, but that’s just me. I did like the debut, the entrance where its says CEO and it gets the crowd to chant it. I think that’s very smart. It’s going to be very catchy. It’ll guarantee those CEO chants live on for quite a while. At the end of the day, she just came out there and she looked like a star, she acts like a star, and she is a star, and she’s gonna be very beneficial for AEW going forward.”
On showing up at Monday Night RAW
“Myself and my wife, we try to do once, maybe twice a week, we had a date night where it was just me and her without kids. We were eating in Raleigh. We were having a great dinner in Raleigh. She was contacted by one of her friends that she does a spa with inside of Raleigh. Raleigh is just a few miles from the Hardy compound. Everyone knows that. They had a suite, which they always have over at the PNC, which is the arena in Raleigh. They invited Reby over to the deal and said, Hey, you want to come hang out? There’s free food, there’s this, whatever. We’d like to see you.’ Reby said, ‘We should go by there. I’d like to see my friend.’ I said, ‘I really wouldn’t want to go by there.’ She said, They’re in a skybox. It’s closed off.’ We wouldn’t be getting there till 8:45 or 9:00. We actually went. Reby hung out with her friends for a little bit. While I was there, the skybox, the suite, was pretty open in the front, and yes, I did get recognized. People started forming a line to take photos with me and whatnot. We got out of there about 10:30. I was there probably 80 or 90 minutes altogether and I probably took 200 photos, which once word got out that I was there, it was like crazy. There was literally at one point a line and security came and had to make them move against the wall so I could take photos with them.” My wife went to hang out and I was there. It was a very innocent thing at the end of the day.
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
