Chasing Glory Recap w/ Jeff Hardy – WrestleMania 33 Return, Drug & Alcohol Abuse, Working A Lighter Schedule, More!

Lillian Garcia welcomes Jeff Hardy to the show.
Hardy informs that he started in WWE in 1994 and he worked as an enhancement talent for a while. By the time he was 19 years old he was signed to the company so he literally grew up in there. That’s why it was so important and cool for him to return to WWE at WrestleMania 33.

Garcia informs that she jumped up and screamed with the rest of the audience when Jeff and Matt returned at WrestleMania 33. Hardy informs that he was nervous prior to that match because he hadn’t jumped off a ladder that big in over a decade, and he was scared that something would go wrong. However, once he went through the curtain all the nerves went away and he knew that’s what he was born to do.
Hardy points out that hesitation is a killer when you plan out big high spots like that. He notes that when you picture something in your mind you just have to go for it and do it. A part of him loves the butterflies and nerves because when he does something successfully and comes out the other side uninjured, that makes the high so much better.

He points out that getting old is tough, and his body is beginning to show it’s vulnerability. He was sitting at an airport a while ago and when he got up he felt his back a little bit. The pain continued and got even worse on the flight. He notes that this injury literally came out of nowhere and the pain bothered him for four weeks, so that’s the kind of stuff that he’s going to have to deal with now that he’s getting older.

Hardy informs that he was caught in between when deciding whether to do a Swanton Bomb off of the Hell in A Cell. He says he’d love to execute that move before he retires, but with his back being so bad recently he’s not sure whether it would have been the right choice or not. He also thinks about his daughters a lot now, and knows he needs to take care of himself.
He admits that he puts a lot of pressure on himself to not disappoint the fans, but he also knows that they care about him and don’t want to see him get seriously injured. Garcia thinks Hardy is putting too much pressure on himself at this point in his career because he has nothing more to prove at this point.

Hardy informs that a lot of the Broken Universe footage reminded him of the old trampoline videos that he and Matt would shoot as a child in North Carolina. He says that he feels so blessed to have grown up with Matt and their tremendously supportive family. Their father always told them to save their money, and that has always stuck with him so he appreciates the value of money.
Even to this day he cuts his own grass, and that’s a lot of work. He only has two days home each week and he always takes one of those days to cut his grass because he needs to be the one to do it. When it’s all done he’s able to sit back and enjoy the work he did.

Hardy informs that his mother passed away from brain cancer when he was just 9 years old. He still calls his father a hero and a legend to this day for the way he took care of them and their mother at that time. His father is now 84 years old and they still have a great relationship. Hardy hopes his father can stick around for a long while to come.
Hardy mentions that he fell into drug and alcohol abuse during his career due to the demands of WWE’s travel and the pain that his body was going through. He’d take pills for a month but then he’d stop, and he never suffered from withdrawals so he was able to go on and off those pills for years.

He was arrested for trafficking a controlled substance shortly after leaving WWE in 2009 because he had such a high volume of pain pills on him. He thinks that arrest saved his life because he was taking 8-12 Vicodin a day, to the point where he’d make himself throw up.
After that he was signed by TNA and he’s still very thankful that they gave him a chance at that time. He stopped taking illegal drugs but began taking sulmas, a pain medication that was still legal at that time. The now infamous match with Sting where he was a walking zombie happened because of his addiction to Sulmas at that time.

Hardy was arrested for a DUI in March of this year and he says he’s still ashamed about that, but he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He’s doing everything he can to put that behind him and he told Triple H that he plans on being more devoted to his career than ever before. Hardy goes on the record and says, “I’m never getting arrested again”.
Moving forward, he says his current WWE contract expires within the next two years and he hopes to get a lighter schedule after that. He hopes to sing more with his band and a lighter WWE schedule would make that possible. He also wants to spend as much time as possible with his family moving forward.
That sums up today’s episode of Chasing Glory. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!