Vince McMahon Wanted Established WWE Star To Become Hispanic
A legendary WWE performer recalled when Vince McMahon suggested he become a Hispanic character.
When the WWE brand split happened in mid-2002, The Hardy Boyz tag team of Matt Hardy and his younger brother Jeff Hardy were put on different shows with Matt going to Smackdown while Jeff was on Raw. It was WWE’s way of splitting up the Hardy Boyz tag team after about three great years together.
The brand split was Vince McMahon’s idea to allow WWE to create their own competition by having some wrestlers only appear on one show per week. Even without Vince calling the shots in WWE today, the brand split concept still applies with no sign of slowing down.
While speaking about that time of his career on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast on ExtremeHardy.com, Matt said there was a time when Vince McMahon suggested that perhaps Matt change his name to something more Hispanic due to a story idea at the time.
“Whenever they split Jeff and I in 2002 and I started doing Matt Hardy Version 1, The Sensei of Mattitude, whenever I first started coming out and I used the Hardy Boys music until they got me new music, which ended up being the Monster Magnet theme, ‘Live For The Moment,’ I was still getting strong reactions.
I still think at that time, WWE just didn’t fully grasp how popular we were together because Vince saw Jeff as the popularity of the team, but we’re at our strongest when we’re together.
There was a pitch, because Paul Heyman was also in creative too, where he wanted me to join Chavo and change my name, where I was no longer going to be Matt Hardy and have some other name, maybe even like a more Hispanic-based name, or something else, be something completely different, so I had a totally different identity, and I was, like, shaming that I used to be a Hardy.
I didn’t want to do that. It probably would have garnered the desired effect, but I was also thinking big picture, like, hold up. I’m Matt Hardy and there’s a lot of equity in this name, and plus it’s my real name. I do want to keep that because I got that at this point.
Vince McMahon Loved The “Matt Hardy Version 1” Character
As Matt Hardy continued telling the story, he mentioned that former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon enjoyed the “Version 1” character who was a guy who believed in his own hype, so to speak.
I ended up pitching the whole Matt Hardy Version 1 thing. Once I started doing promos and I was super delusional over the top, Vince actually fell in love with it. You can tell that because he had me beat The Undertaker. I got to pin The Undertaker one time. Vince told him, ‘Look, this guy is going to pin you because we’re trying to build him.’”
The current WWE management team is embracing independent pro wrestling by creating the WWE ID program, but Hall of Famer Jim Ross made it clear recently that Vince McMahon never wanted to support indy wrestling when he was calling the shots.