Matt Hardy Recalls Wild Vince McMahon Meeting During WWE Attitude Era
Matt Hardy and Edge were both integral parts of WWE during 2005 and were set on a collision course for SummerSlam. However, as has become well known, the pair had considerable backstage drama going on involving their relationships with Amy Dumas, aka Lita, and the situation had started to concern one Vince McMahon.
"[McMahon] was worried there was going to be tension between myself and Edge, so he called us into his office and he was going to sit us down and talk to us and also let us know how he wanted the finish of the match to go," Hardy said on "The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy." "The first thing Vince says, he says, '[Edge], Matt, you know the WWE is my company, right?' We go, 'Yeah.'
"'I'm going to tell you this right now, if either one of you go out there tonight and try to take liberties with each other, if you try to intentionally hurt one another, I am the most powerful man in this industry, I promise neither one of you will ever work a day in this industry again, do you understand?' We go, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. We understand.'"
But that wasn't all McMahon had to say to the pair.
Have you ever seen a person in a wheelchair and you want to eat them?
After warning Hardy and Edge against taking liberties with one another, McMahon's speech went off in an entirely different direction.
"He said, 'Have you ever seen two animals ... in the wild kingdom where they're ever going to fight one another?" Hardy continued. "Have you ever seen one animal wound another animal and when it wounds that animal and the animal starts bleeding and it smells the blood, it gets bigger, it swells up, it growls and it just wants to kill the other animal ... These are your primal instincts."
"We had got so freaked out from Vince's monologue that we were sitting besides each other almost like cuddling together like, 'What the f***?'" Hardy said. "We think he brought us in there, and he tried to like, freak us out to bond us, to give us something to talk about."
Despite the real-life tension, Edge, with Lita in his corner, defeated Hardy after just under five minutes of action, and no liberties were taken.
"Everything about that match was super professional but, Vince, Vince went crazy," Hardy said. "He told us, 'Have you ever seen a crippled person or a person in a wheelchair and you want to eat them?' That's the quote. He said that is basic instincts, that is human psychology."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy" with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.