Matt Hardy on Vince McMahon changing WWE result at short notice before WrestleMania
Matt Hardy made his name in WWE in the 1990s and 2000s when Vince McMahon was in charge of the company's creative direction. The wrestling legend recently recalled how his former boss once changed the finish to a WrestleMania match at the last minute.
In 2003, Hardy retained the Cruiserweight Championship against Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 19. He was originally supposed to feud with Edge. However, former talent relations executive John Laurinaitis booked The Rated-R Superstar against A-Train instead.
Hardy said on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast that McMahon initially wanted Mysterio to win at WrestleMania before changing his mind:
"The WrestleMania 19 finish, the initial plan when we were doing it, he was gonna win there. I was gonna win the title, carry it for a little bit, then Rey was gonna win it at WrestleMania 19, but Vince liked what I was doing so much, he said, 'I'm gonna change the finish.' This only happened a day or two before we actually got to WrestleMania 19. He said, 'I'm gonna change the finish. I'm gonna have you beat Rey and retain the title and we're gonna drag this out because I love what you're doing so much.'" [35:44 – 36:07]
At the time, McMahon was a big fan of Hardy's Version 1.0 persona. The former WWE Chairman even booked him to defeat The Undertaker via pinfall on SmackDown in 2002.
How the Matt Hardy vs. Rey Mysterio feud ended
After losing at WrestleMania 19, Rey Mysterio defeated Matt Hardy on the June 5, 2003, episode of SmackDown to capture the Cruiserweight Championship.
Although Hardy was disappointed that his feud with Edge was nixed, he was happy with how the Mysterio rivalry panned out:
"Whenever I wrestled him at WrestleMania, that was going to be the end of it," Hardy said. "We were just gonna do that and do it at WrestleMania, but Vince liked what we were doing and working together so much, he was gonna drag that out and we were gonna end up doing the blow-off match with the Cruiserweight title near Anaheim, Southern California, so that it would be a big deal for Rey whenever he won the Cruiserweight title, and it ended up being the main event of SmackDown, so that was really, really cool." [35:07 – 35:33]
Mysterio also defeated Hardy in a Cruiserweight Championship rematch on the June 12, 2003, episode of SmackDown.
Please credit The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
