Controversial WWE Match Had “Vince McMahon’s Fingerprints Over It”
Matt Hardy has recalled how Vince McMahon had his fingerprints all over a controversial WWE match that wasn’t received well by fans.
When it comes to traditional pro wrestling matches in a ring, Vince McMahon did certain things he liked from a creative standpoint and had booking tendencies that fans knew just from watching the shows.
However, when pro wrestling left the ring in the past and cinematic matches started happening, it took Vince McMahon out of his element a bit.
It was five years ago on the March 19, 2018 edition of Raw when WWE decided to air a very unique match between Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt called “The Ultimate Deletion.” It was similar to matches that Matt had in Impact Wrestling but certainly was unique to WWE. While speaking on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy spoke about how Vince got involved in the match.
“I think with the way he (Vince McMahon) tried to forge it into something that he understood a little more helped and was beneficial. So that’s why I was like, okay to go along with it, because Vince feels like he’s playing a part in it obviously, he’s going to do a lot more with you. And, and my main goal, the most important goal was to get a cinematic match, that was very important. That was one of my entire goals coming back to WWE, to be able to do cinematic matches every so often.”
“So yeah, I didn’t like the laughing stuff, Bray didn’t like the laughing stuff, and we thought that was too much. We got doing comedy. I mean, for instance, like Bray Wyatt, even at his most serious and deadly, you know, reinvention as The Fiend, you know, would still do, Bray Wyatt, Firefly Funhouse Bray. And he would also do Bray Wyatt muscleman Bray on top of Bray Wyatt, on top of the Fiend, which was an absolute killer, so Bray understands the comedy in stuff, how you have had to have like humor and light-hearted moments.”
“And I do as well, obviously, because Broken Matt Hardy did so much silliness as it was anyway, but it was part of the entertaining concept. I felt like in these matches, you can have moments that are very serious and very sincere and even dramatic, you know, but you also can’t take yourself too seriously.”
“Because when you’re doing a cinematic match, you’re still two pro-wrestlers that are basically doing like a version of a movie. And it’s not like you’re the greatest actors in the world, you know, we’re not Matthew McConaughey and Brad Pitt, we’re out there doing our thing. And we’re wrestling and we’re being you know, live stuntmen on the fly as we’re doing all this, but also we’re entertaining people.”
As he continued, Matt Hardy spoke about the House Of Horrors Match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt from Payback 2017 that a lot of fans didn’t seem to like. Matt says that match had Vince McMahon fingerprints all over it.
“I felt like the House of Horrors match with Randy and Bray, you could tell that had Vince’s fingerprints over it tried to take yourself way too serious. And they tried to like do a horror movie thing but I think at the end of the day, it just came off cheesy. And I feel like if you try to do something way too serious in the insane and larger than life fantastical world of pro-wrestling I feel like it’ll rub people the wrong way.”
“Because it’s not going to be the great thing you want, because once again, then you go back to two men fighting one another in their underwear throwing each other and ropes and stuff, you know, like pro-wrestling isn’t a serious contest. And I still, once again, I would recommend everyone out there don’t take your pro-wrestling too seriously. Enjoy it. But remember this is entertainment at the end of the day and pro wrestling was built on entertainment and it’ll always need entertainment in the confines of pro-wrestling.”
While Vince McMahon may have had a big part in House of Horrors, he is also sporting a mustache these days, which could be classified as a horror look to some people.