AEW has brought in a few former WWE Superstars, and some of them arrived right after their non-compete clauses expired with WWE. Jeff Hardy is in that group of talent, but AEW wanted to make sure that they brought him in carefully.
During the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Matt made it clear that Tony Khan did not want to hire Jeff Hardy, or even talk to him, until his 90-day non-compete clause was up with WWE. That being said, TK takes contract tampering very seriously.
“Tony Khan takes [the non-compete clause] as serious as a heart attack, is the old saying. He just won’t do it. He feels it’s not worthwhile to do. The way that deal went is we know I’m turning babyface at some point; it turns out Jeff’s no-compete clause ends on a Tuesday and there’s a Dynamite the next night.”
“I was going to turn babyface regardless if Jeff came or not. There were no Jeff plans. They didn’t make Jeff creative plans. Tony refused to do that; only after Jeff got released from WWE. I could’ve turned baby face, done a program with Andrade for four weeks or whatever, and then Jeff could’ve showed up. There was no plans at that time [for Jeff].”
Matt Hardy
Jeff Hardy did debut for AEW, and he had a short run with the company before another DUI charge crept up on the Charismatic Enigma. That caused a suspension, and we haven’t seen Jeff Hardy on television since then. Hopefully, he will be able to return sooner than later, because his DUI situation is now taken care of.
H/T to Ringside News
Follow Corey at @CoreyBrennanBS on Twitter
If you enjoy Bodyslam’s content, you can help donate to the site here. You can also visit our PWTees store and buy Bodyslam official merchandise here.
You can listen to all of Bodyslam’s podcasts by following us on Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube Channel, or any of your favorite podcast platforms.ⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘ
