Matt Hardy On His AEW Status, Possible WWE Return, Hardy Boyz Legacy

On his recent weight loss:

"200 is the goal. You know, just being older, it's like being big and being bulky isn't going to change at all. I'm Matt Hardy. I am who I am. I mean, I've been doing this for 34 years, just the more athletic and the more nimble and agile I am, the better. So that's just kind of what I'm shooting for."

On changing his in-ring style:

"I think a lot of it changed after the Unforgiven 2005 match vs. Edge when I did a leg drop off the top [of the cage]. I'll never forget I walked back through the curtain, Ted DiBiase and IRS Mike Rotunda, they looked at me said, Oh my God, how are you feeling after that? And I said, I have adrenaline going right now, ask me tomorrow. But I couldn't walk straight for like four weeks, I had a little kink in my step. And that's the point where I said, instead of doing that leg drop every single time I'm gonna and drop an elbow to the back of the neck and land on my feet. That was the biggest turning point for me as far as learning how to work smarter, especially with the way it pertains to bumps."

On what hurts right now:

"Not as much. It's been really good doing those cold plunges. I swear by the effects that I had and I feel pretty good. And just like the way I train now, I'm not a guy who goes heavy, I do a lot of reps, I try and do stuff back to back to get like a good pump and I do super hard cardio. I do feel like that makes a huge difference in the way my body feels and it functions. I feel like once you stop, if you stop working out and stop training, and you can probably feel this too, like then as soon as you take one bad bump or you fall or something that's when everything shuts down. It's crazy how physically that prepares your body to go out and take bumps or do whatever. If you keep your body up to date, if you keep it tuned up, it reacts so much better with the way it recovers even being older." 

On thinking about winding down:

"Yes, I do. And I think a couple more [years], just depending on how my body feels. And like the way my body felt over the winter break. And it was so good, it was weird. I was feeling so good and so healthy. When Jeff, Sting had an injury and he wasn't there. And they ended up doing Jeff vs. Darby and Jeff had some singles matches for a few weeks. And just during that time I was ready, that's when I started dieting and I was trimming down, I was ready to like get in the ring and started rock and roll, whatever, and it's just I've had time off, but just the way my body felt so good during that time, that makes me feel like I can go for a little bit longer. But I would love to do another two years, especially if I'm capable. Because I feel like I don't have to do the things the young guys do. As long as I can go out there and be competitive and do my stuff, do the greatest hits of Matt Hardy, and sell for these people or take their stuff and then we're good."

On his thoughts as his AEW contract is coming to an end:

"What's important to me, I think more than anything else right now, it's just like the legacy of Jeff and Matt. Because we do get that we are mentioned in the conversation of the greatest tag team and we want to help younger teams, we want to build teams. But also you have to be put into to a position succeed where you do seem relevant, where you do seem like you're at the top of your game, you can't just go out there and get beat every single week. So it's very important to me that we're utilized in the right way so that when we do have a program with someone, and we build to a big match, and when they beat us, then it means something. Because if you just get beat without reason, it doesn't really mean anything." 

What do you need to add to your legacy?

"I think a legacy could be completed, like a good run as Tag Team Champions somewhere else where we have good quality matches, especially working with guys that we are smartly booked against. Because Jeff right now is in one of the best stages of his life that he's ever been in throughout the entirety of his wrestling career. He's just got everything together in his personal life, which is really good. And he's also a maniac now that he's in this position. He gets up every morning at 5 am and he does cardio for an hour. This is kind of what he does, and that's his drill, but he's also taking really good care of himself and he's got it together. So I think between him and I kind of going through this midlife transformation and trying to be in the best shape that we can possibly be. I do think there's legs in us being successful as a tag team, wherever it may be."

On his WWE return not being Broken Matt Hardy:

"I worked really hard to try and be an in-between type figure, like still have these elements of Broken Matt and then still be like original Hardy Boyz Matt. Because like we had the thing that happened right before that with ROH where TNA was claiming the copyright deal and we had that little legal battle. So I didn't go over the top but I still wanted to keep it consistent in case we could get back there and I wanted to go back there. I remember Triple H said something to me a little later on he said, Hey let's do old-school Hardy Boyz. We can have a good run with that and I could see down the road and we get a Broken Matt Hardy run, we can revisit that again and he was definitely down for that. So I thought that was really cool."

On the original plan for his AEW debut:

"The original plan was that we were still going to do a double reveal. It was going to be in Rochester, New York, Brodie Lee’s hometown. We were both going to reveal on that day, so that didn't necessarily change. But it was going to be a deal where I joined the Elite and I was their fifth man, because Nick Jackson was out, and I was going to be in that first Blood and Guts with him, which ended up getting postponed for a year."

On the All Out 2020 match with Sammy Guevara:

"It’s crazy, my memory is much better than you would probably guess. I just remember being so mad I couldn't stand up when I was trying to get up. And I felt like you were super drunk or something. You know what I mean? Just like, stand up why can’t I stand up? But I didn't realise I had been knocked out, which was crazy. So it is what it is."

On appearing at a WWE Raw taping:

"So what happened there is my wife has a spa that she's part of, and she gets a lot of stuff there and she goes and visits there a lot. So she has a real close friend in Raleigh. And she invited my wife and I just said, I'd probably rather not go, it'd be chaotic, especially if there's people around. They say no, it's a skybox, it is a private suite, whatever. And it's like, okay, so like we walked in about nine o'clock. And then it turns out it was like open on the front or whatever. And then I was still sitting back up there and people went Matt Hardy is there! We start seeing people do delete! Then people started coming and the line formed. And then, I wanted to look friendly, and I took pictures with everybody and did that. And then we cut out, we stayed they're about 80 minutes in home. And my wife was salivating over it. I think it was it was great content, she's a content creator, she can put some good content up."

What is Matt Hardy grateful for:

"My health, the chance I have been given and the health of my family."