Independent Wrestlers Recreate Edge Spearing Jeff Hardy At Wrestlemania X-Seven
Call-backs and references will always be a part of professional wrestling. Especially on the independent circuit. Some are subtle, only being picked up by fans with a keen eye for detail. But there are also times where it is very blatant what two wrestlers are trying to recreate.
Tyler Aero and Matthew Grant decided to replicate one of the most famous Wrestlemania spots of all time. At Wrestlemania X-Seven, Jeff Hardy was speared out of mid-air by Edge while he was hanging high above the ring. Aero and Grant have been inspired by both wrestlers in their own ways and decided it was time to pull off the incredible spot at Pro Wrestling Ontario Redemption on April 30th.
Bodyslam spoke to both wrestlers and Aero detailed the experience of how recreating the spot felt:
“We’ve had dozens of matches. We’ve worked each other in multi-mans, tag matches, singles matches, trios matches. We’ve created moments everywhere that we’ve worked before. We had an opportunity to have this ladder match that was ultimately expected to be absolute chaos. So, it was one of those “step up, or step aside moments.” It’s no secret that Jeff Hardy has played an influence on a lot of my career. As Edge has on Grants. So we thought, “what better way to pay homage to two of our biggest influences, than to recreate one of the most iconic spots of all time?” (Wrestlemania X-Seven). Climbing that ladder, leading up to it. It was one of those moments where you take a deep breathe and say “Here we go…”. Hanging from the beams of the building. Feet swinging. I see Grant climbing the ladder in front of me. There’s only one direction to go and it’s down. As he made contact with me, flying through the air with this spear. The drop felt like a lifetime to hit the ground. Just total slow-mo. BAM. We come down, the crowd loses its mind. They know what they just saw. They remember it. Pure amazement. Laying there It was just a huge sense of relief. In my mind, I’m thinking, “Holy S***, we did it!”. Forever gonna be one of the most memorable moments of my career. It’s about creating those memories. You can’t write those emotions, those feelings, maybe you can. But you can’t write them well unless you’ve experienced it first-hand. I’m proud of that.”
Tyler Aero
Grant on the other hand was more than comfortable admitting how crazy it was to recreate such a high-risk spot:
“It was one of those things where as a performer, you think about what people are going to walk away thinking about from an event. In this day & age where fans have truly seen about everything, it’s about finding your own moment to create & captalizing on it. For myself & Aero, this was an idea we’ve talked about and almost did on another show not too long ago, but this match & this show was truly the place for it to happen to garner the reaction and takeaway that it did. He’s also the only person I’d trust to do half of the crazy shit we’ve done to each other including the assault driver through the ladder that happened minutes prior to this (yes, we’re fucking crazy.) Before the show, we had Aero hang & myself climb the ladder to gage distance and whether the spot was actually capable of happening. In the moment though, I think I can speak for both of us when I say, I don’t think we expected it to go as smooth as it did. We both walked away unscathed from the entire match, and actually ended up wrestling each other in a match the following night. The influences on us we’re extremely evident in this match, and I think looking back on it a week later, we’ve created one of the coolest moments to not just happen in a PWO ring, but on an Ontario independent show in recent memory, and I’m extremely honored and proud to be in that spot.”
Matthew Grant
It’s clear both Grant and Aero were more than satisfied from the reaction they received for such a dangerous spot. As both say, the spot was about paying tribute to Edge and Jeff Hardy. Make sure to check them out on Twitter: @m4tthewgrant and @tylera3ro.
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