On his recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, podcast, Matt Hardy explained the reasoning behind him and his brother Jeff wrestling on AEW Dark Elevation recently.
“Here’s what happened that day,” Hardy said. “We get to TV on Wednesday, they’re putting together the card and everything, and initially, it was going to be a Dynamite and a Rampage on one night and then they split it to where it was going to be Rampage live on one night. Tentatively, on Rampage for weeks, there were talks of myself, Jeff, and Top Flight vs. a four-man team of the AFO: Andrade’s guys.”
“That was going to be on Rampage and Tony said, ‘Well, I feel like we’re just giving [the fans] a Dynamite and I want to give them all the stars that are here, I want to give them the best experience possible. Would you be okay just moving this Rampage match so they see the Hardys? Dynamite was packed from beginning to end, the card was loaded and there was no time for anything. We could put a pre-tape for you guys but we want you guys to be in front of a live crowd. Would you guys be okay with doing a live, Elevation match? We’ll take that Rampage match that I talked about doing and just bump it to Elevation, and that way, the live crowd gets to see you and it’ll be a huge match for Elevation. Hopefully, that’ll do a great number online.’
“We said, of course, Tony, that’s why we’re here, we’re wrestlers and we’re more than happy to do that. Especially being first, before all of Dynamite, we were excited because we knew that would make it that much easier to have a great match because the crowd was going to be more into it. The match was so much fun, and I know Dante and Darius, they were having the time of their life teaming with the Hardy Boyz. And anytime we work with Private Party, those guys are so excited and so hyped. It was a great match, I loved it and I loved that we got to interact with them.”