Matt Hardy looks back on the time he had heat due to his actions at WWE Survivor Series 2005.
The Undertaker was the subject of the newest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, and co-host Jon Alba brought up rumors that Matt got heat for something that happened at WWE Survivor Series 2005. Hardy looked back on that time by noting that he recently finished feud with Edge, and his planned involvement with the show was thrown up in the air due to the death of Eddie Guerrero.
“There was a couple different plans for me at Survivor Series,” Hardy said. “At one point, I was going to be on the main Survivor Series team as a babyface. Then there was a time where it also got changed, and I was going to wrestle Eddie Guerrero, in a one-on-one match. Both of those would have been great matches for me. But it ended up, as we all know, very tragically, Eddie passed away before that, and then his death just threw a lot of stuff up in the air for that card. So things changed, and I ended up not even being on the card at all. I remember showing some frustration as I was flying in for that pay-per-view. I sat beside Pat Patterson and Jerry Brisco, and we were getting off the plane. They said, ‘Oh, it’s okay, kid. These things happen. It is what it is. Just keep doing your thing, and make sure you protect yourself. You’ve got a lot of equity, you’ve got a lot of build, you’ve gotta protect yours or and look good.’
Once the pay-per-view rolled around, Hardy described how he thought he’d just be hanging out backstage because he wasn’t on the card, but he was put in a segment where The Undertaker would beat up some people at the end of the show. He noted that he asked Vince McMahon whether he was supposed to be on the list, and the chairman wanted to have someone with name value in that spot. Hardy stated that McMahon told him not to bump in the segment and simply “powder out,” but in a moment of frustration, Matt somewhat no-sold The Undertaker’s arrival.
“Then we got there that day, and I wasn’t on the card,” Hardy said. “I just thought I was gonna be there hanging out, watching the show, and then I’d work the next night following the pay-per-view. But it ends up, there was a list of names of people that were going to be in the ring at the end, celebrating, and then Taker comes to the ring and he was going to clear some of those guys, and my name was in it. I was going to Vince at that time because I had face time with him. I said, ‘Was my name meant to be on this list? Do you want me to be out there?’ He said, ‘Well, yeah, I think it’s fine because I need someone that people give a s— about out there. It’s very good to have equity out in the ring whenever Taker comes so it doesn’t just look like a bunch of extras who are going to get beat up and take choke slams. I said’ ‘Well, what do you want me to do out there?’ He said, ‘Oh, don’t take a choke slam, don’t get beat up. Just powder out. You guys figure out how you wanna do it, but just powder out. I don’t want you to bump.’
“I said, ‘Okay, cool. So once again, we went out there and we did that. I was planning on powdering out, but there was a part of me that was just so frustrated, and once again, it was my fault, I will be accountable for it. When Taker came out, I was laying on the ropes, and I didn’t react to him like I should have. Looking back in hindsight, it’s like, what a dumb move that was. I was just mad because I didn’t get my spot, once again, which was very dumb. It was a great lesson for me to learn. If you’re gonna do anything, go all-in on it. That was a great lesson that I learned at that time. I was upset because I wasn’t getting a match or a great spot on the pay-per-view that I was gonna be getting. That was like a little bit of a temper tantrum, so once again, I’m accountable for it.
Hardy then described how it seemed like nobody noticed what happened, but he thought JBL went back and watched the tape. He recalled how The Undertaker approached him at catering, clearly angry with the situation. Hardy stated that he apologized and agreed to do whatever it took to make things right. He recalled how he did jobs and put people over for roughly two months before The Undertaker eventually said they were “good” and everything went back to normal.
“I remember nobody even really noticed it at first, when I jumped out,” Hardy said. “I guess JBL went back and saw the tape and he got people fired up the next day at TV. He’s like we gotta talk to this guy. Taker was so mad about it. I remember he came into catering, people were around, and they played the footage back, like, ‘What were you thinking?’ I remember he was so mad, I felt like, he was shaking, and I was like, ‘Eh.’ I was at this point where I’d been fired, I came back, I’d done this feud. I was almost untouchable emotionally at that point. It’s hard to f— with me after everything I’d been through. I said, ‘I’m sorry.’
“I said, ‘I do apologize for it, and I wish I hadn’t done it. I did it, so I’ll do whatever it will take to make it right.’ I remember he was like, at the very end, okay that’s fine. Then for the next two or three months, there were points where I was pretty much doing jobs, I was putting people over the majority of the time, and that was my punishment. I’m pretty sure that’s what pushed Viscera to do the deal, like people talk about that Royal Rumble clip where he jumped on me and he was giving his gimmick. Once again, I was having to pay my penance, and I did it for like three months and I just rolled with it, and then at the very end, there was a point where I talked with Taker, and he said thank you for apologizing, we’re good. Then everything stopped.
When asked whether he thought The Undertaker went to Vince McMahon about his punishment, and Hardy expressed his confidence that was the case. He stated that they weren’t wrong to punish what he did, and he paid his penance for doing a “dumb thing.”
“100%, yeah. He said, ‘We gotta teach him a lesson.’ I’m certain of that. They’re not wrong. It happened to me, and I’m not gonna play a victim card in that. It was dumb what I did. I went through it and paid my penance.”
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