Ex-WWE Star Compares Vince McMahon’s Creative Mind in Different Eras
A future WWE Hall of Famer has discussed what it was like working for Vince McMahon during the Attitude Era and many years later.
The subject of Vince McMahon has been a hot topic this week because of the Netflix documentary “Mr. McMahon” which tells his life story as the man who ran WWE for over 40 years.
While Vince McMahon’s legacy has been tarnished by various legal issues and allegations against him, he is also arguably the most important name in the history of the pro wrestling business.
Matt Hardy recently turned 50 years old and has been a part of the pro wrestling business for over 30 years. Currently, Matt is a regular for TNA Impact although he’s most associated with being a WWE legend along with his brother Jeff Hardy.
When the Hardy Boyz first started as regulars in WWE, it was in the late 1990s in the Attitude Era, which is a beloved time when Vince McMahon and the creative team was thriving even though some of the content that aired may not work so well today.
The Hardys most recent run in WWE was in the late 2010s after their triumphant return at WrestleMania 33 in 2017. The brothers likely want to return to WWE someday, but if they do, it won’t be with Vince McMahon calling the shots since he’s gone from WWE while Triple H runs the show.
On his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Matt Hardy spoke about his early days of working with Vince compared to 20 years later.
“I felt like he was very much on the pulse (in 1998) He had a much better feeling of the audience and what was current in pop culture and society and whatnot. I just feel like you fast forward 20 years to 2019, he just doesn’t have that same connection that he did in the late 90s and early 2000s. That’s what it seemed like from speaking with him.”
“There were times where he still had ideas that ended up being and sounding kind of crazy, but they would still work sometimes. I know there were times where I talked to him with me and Bray (Wyatt), and he kept saying, ‘You guys can be something so special. You can be so special, but with what you’re doing, you have to really stand out, and you have to be a certain way, and you have to carry a certain dynamic with these personas you have’ and whatnot. He never went into the specifics of what it was, but then like, at the end of the day, we both thought we shouldn’t be wrestling on TV.”
“For four or five weeks straight, we had matches that we won in like three or four minutes on TV. I’m like, ‘I don’t think this is doing anything for us. It’s not doing anything for our opponents. We’re much better if we have some remote vignettes and we tell stories or whatever else and there’s someone who wants a shot at these titles, and then eventually we build this big match by whatever happens. You get heat on us some way or whatnot.'”
He kept saying, ‘We need to be a certain way, these characters, this can be huge if it’s done right’, but then he ended up putting us out there, two very gimmicky characters who need vignettes and remote location shootings and stuff to stay unique, I feel, and we were just being put in four minute matches where we’re just beating up somebody pretty quick and hitting our finish and winning, and I don’t think that’s doing anything for anyone.”
“I just feel like later on, towards the end of the 2010s, he just wasn’t as connected to what was current in culture and society.”
Vince McMahon Didn’t Think The Undertaker Had A Concussion At WrestleMania 30
At WrestleMania 30 in 2014, The Undertaker lost to Brock Lesnar in a match that ended Taker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania, so he went from 21-0 to 21-1 that night. The Undertaker suffered a concussion during the match with Lesnar, so he has said that he doesn’t remember anything about the match.
While speaking in the Netflix documentary about his life, Vince McMahon claimed that he didn’t think that Undertaker had a concussion and it was just a case of Taker being surprised that he was told to lose the match.