Matt Hardy Reveals Who Gets Real Credit For Creating ‘Matt Facts’

Matt Hardy has undergone a lot of changes in his career. Hardy’s chameleon-like ability to transition to different characters is a huge reason for his longevity in the squared circle. One of his most popular personas was the delusional and cocky “Matt Hardy Version 1” in WWE.

During Matt’s entrance, a graphic would pop up on the screen that showed various “Matt Facts.” These were real-life factoids about Matt Hardy that served the character very well. As a self-important lunatic, it made perfect sense that menial snippets about Matt’s life would be part of his presentation.

The genesis of the “Matt Facts” gimmick was discussed on the latest episode of The Extreme Life with Matt Hardy. Matt credits long-time WWE producer Kevin Dunn with coming up with the idea. Hardy also said Dunn ruined the idea.

“I gotta be honest about this too. Like, I remember talking about having some sort of entrance that kind of related to the internet. I remember pitching that idea. They put together this tent of what was going on and I remember they had that great look where I’m so smart, which I always try and like redo that expression whenever I do kind of the half-smile. A little sarcastic, sh*t-eating grin. I remember they had that little image and they did the box like a little Windows Media Player, old school things. Oh, my God, this is great. Then Kevin Dunn is the one who said, ‘We can put like a little factoid up here about Matt.’ So I had to give Kevin Dunn credit for that. That was his idea initially, and then they said ‘Just give us a few Matt Facts and we’ll pick a couple. So every week at TV, I would submit like four or five different Matt Facts and they would pop two of them up on the screen during the entrance, and I love that. Just looking back in hindsight, I’m so glad that I was able to get that entrance and be able to call those things Matt Facts.

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The only time they weren’t mine. There was a small period when our book first came out, Exist to Inspire. Kevin Dunn put up some of the Matt Facts — and I think I’ve shared this story before. Kevin Dunn created some of the Matt Facts. I remember, one time, the Matt Fact box said, ‘Have you read Matt’s book?’ and I was so furious. I didn’t know that was gonna happen. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m really passionate about these things. You broke the formula. Every one of these stores was like, ‘Matt…’ It has to have, ‘Matt does this, Matt does that…’ Matt Facts.

You can’t have a Matt Fact that [ doesn’t start with] the word ‘Matt. This delusional c*cksucker [the ‘Version 1’ character] would never let that happen. I was so passionate about the ego and the delusion of Matt Hardy, Version One, that I got so personally upset about that. It’s so funny because later on, it really wasn’t a big deal. But I was very passionate about this thing.”

Matt Hardy has stated in the past that he would love to bring the V1 character back sometime. For now, he is enjoying a run in AEW with his brother Jeff Hardy. Time will tell if we will ever see the return of “Matt Facts.”

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H/T Fightful