Matt Hardy Recalls Being In Ring Of Honor Faction With Future WWE Universal Champion

Matt Hardy's wrestling career has seen him work alongside stars of numerous eras, from jobbing to the likes of Steve Austin and Scott Hall early in his career, to later working with Sting and Samoa Joe in TNA, and to having now worked with Kenny Omega and Orange Cassidy in AEW. In the early 2010s, Hardy had the opportunity to work with Kevin Owens, then Kevin Steen, in Ring of Honor as part of the S.C.U.M. stable. On a recent episode of "Extreme Life with Matt," Hardy recalled his time working with the future WWE Universal Champion in ROH.

"The whole story behind all of this is that Steve Carino brought me in as like a heavy hitter in S.C.U.M. but it was not with Kevin's knowledge," Hardy said, "We did a promo which I love so much which was on Ring of Honor television. He said, 'You know Steve I'll tell you something, I'm cool with everything you've said and I'm cool with everything you've done. I'm cool with everyone you brought in except for one thing, and that's that motherf***er right there.' And I'm shocked and hurt and stunned by like, 'me but why?' That really kind of set the tone that you could see one of us had to go. One way or the other one of us had to go, and ultimately it led up to us having a little bit of a little bit of a rivalry."

The feud continued with an anti-bullying video made by Hardy and his wife that he recalled being famous at the time. Hardy recalled a big blow-off match between himself and Owens from Best in the World in 2013. 

"I like that match a lot. People were very happy about it in Ring of Honor too," he said, "We had a lot of bells and whistles, and obviously there was like S.C.U.M. run-ins and we did tables and chairs and all that stuff too."

The no-disqualification match was the second to the last match on the card, behind the late Jay Briscoe defending the ROH World Title against his brother Mark Briscoe. Hardy recalled voicing fears to Owens after the match that they might be stealing the spotlight from the Briscoes.

"I remember, I love this line. Kevin said, 'Oh no. I don't know if you've ever seen these two fight they're gonna be fine. They'll kill it, they're going to be fine.' And I love that he was right, but I did I almost felt guilty that we did so much stuff before the main event with the world title," he said, "I loved working with Adam Cole when I did that stuff in ROH. I mean there were so many talented guys in ROH during that time, it was a lot of fun being there and it really kind of reignited my flame and love of wrestling."