On a recent edition of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, AEW wrestler Matt Hardy discussed the locker room culture in WWE, his comments about The Young Bucks, and more.
You can check out the highlights from the podcast below:
On if he ever found the WWE locker room contentious: “I would even probably use a stronger adjective than contentious. There were some times the culture was malicious. Really bad…Not a lot of people, especially with the mentality people have in this day and age, and [I’m] not saying that in a bad way, just people are much more caring and giving and open, and willing to help everyone out and give everyone chances and opportunities, right?
“But the culture when we first came in, the way they would bring you in and haze you and test you and do things to you to make you earn your place in that dressing room. You had to earn a seat, you had to earn a locker in that dressing room. It was…there were some things that I saw done over the course of my first few years which…people would be arrested for nowadays. It was a different business.”
On things wrestlers would do if there was heat in the locker room: “You would see…somethings where guys had heat, where they would take their suitcase as soon as they went out, they would cut up their clothing. They would put it into the shower. I’ve seen where guys had heat, they would be in the showers and guys would make fun of them and say terrible things, push them to the limits, which would horrify them, just to put them through what they thought was a test.”
On what he said about The Young Bucks: “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years that I’ve been there, which is like ‘Whoa,’ looking back in hindsight. I did a promo with the Bucks on a BTE before we wrestled the Bucks in, I want to say in Vegas. But there was a thing where I said ‘If you guys would’ve come up when we came up, you never would’ve made it.’ And it was a legit statement, cause they’re both nice guys, they’re both sweethearts. But like, a lot of people could not have survived through that. It’s crazy. The culture was just so different.”
