He opened up about his WWE release on the latest edition of the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast.
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WWE let go of Jeff Hardy towards the end of last year. The backstage story was that WWE thought he was under the influence of something because he walked out through the crowd in the middle of a match. WWE told him to either go to rehab or risk being released from the company.
Jeff, who has had a problem with substance abuse over the years said that he didn’t want to go to rehab and ended up being released by the company. He, however, passed the drug test, meaning that he was not under any influence.
He opened up about his WWE release on the latest edition of the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast. He said, “Certain things happen for a reason. Subconsciously, that was maybe the smartest thing I’ve ever done, guided by something higher than me, I’ll say.
“The best way I can describe my journey the last few months in WWE was like ‘glimmers of hope, maybe I still do have something.’
“The last glimmer of hope was Survivor Series, which was really good. It came down to me and Seth Rollins, I was killing it, almost won and the crowd was so behind me. I felt like one of the most popular babyfaces in WWE because the crowd was so with me. Then there were other times where I felt like a ghost, roaming the halls like, ‘Why am I even here? I don’t feel important’. I kept doing my deal and would show up and do whatever they wanted me to do. I’ve never been a politicker so I don’t go out of my way to try and get a certain spot or achieve a certain status.
“That night in Edinburg, Texas, I finished my heat, I took the heat, and I said, ‘I’m ready to go’. Went over the rail, disappeared into the crowd. Naturally, they think I took something like drugs or whatever, but I didn’t. If I was that bad, I should have never went out there, that’s the way I see it. I thought, ‘Just another unpredictable thing I can do and I’ll get away with it’. It was more serious than that.
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“Again, it was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done because everything worked out so perfectly, mainly because my first day in AEW, I felt valuable for the first time. The care and love I was shown, I got chills thinking about it. In WWE, it felt like they just wanted to keep me there to sell action figures. I put so much love and joy in painting my face, when I see it come out and immortalized in an action figure, I’m like, ‘That’s why I do this, it’s so cool’. That’s one thing I’m super excited about in AEW, my first action figure with the face paint.”
WWE eventually made Jeff Hardy an offer to return to the company after finding out that he had passed his drug test and even gave him the offer of being inducted into the Hall of Fame but Hardy rejected the offer and signed for AEW.
