Jeff Hardy was the most recent guest of Corey Graves’ After The Bell podcast and “The Charismatic Enigma” talked his strange return to SmackDown and addressed some of his most recent substance abuse issues and his plans to stay clean and creative going forward.
On the episode, Hardy first talked about his empty arena match with Baron Corbin and how surreal the whole occassion was.
“I never worked with Baron Corbin before and so naturally I was excited about that, but man it was like a weird dream,” Jeff said. “Yeah it was very dreamlike for sure, but man, I envisioned in my mind like what it was gonna be like cause this is kind of like my last chance to get it right and this is gonna be my last big comeback in my career. So yeah, being that it was in front of nobody it was very dreamlike so I hope I do get to work with Corbin again with more time and with a crowd.”
Jeff does talk about how his recent rotator cuff surgery tripped him up considering it was (surprisingly) the first serious wrestling-related injury the youngest Hardy has had.
“It’s crazy man, and I’ve been very lucky throughout my career, in my 20s and 30s you know I never had any surgeries, no serious injuries, but then man, in 2018 I had rotator cuff surgery my first injury in pro wrestling and evidently it’s something to do with me not working on a daily basis and being worried about ‘am I gonna heal? Am I gonna be as good as I was before this injury and this surgery…
Jeff then addressed his recent DWI, but gave it some context detailing his past time with substance abuse problems:
“But yeah, I’m just going to get this out of the way, after that first DUI I got, man, I think I was doing Lilian Garcia’s podcast and I said, ‘I got my first and last DUI.’ And I was so sure of that in my moment and I think I even went on to say like, ‘I’ll never get arrested again,’ and I remembered when I said that, I said, ‘I probably shouldn’t have said that.’ And now, being that I’ve been to rehab, inpatient rehab for the first time in my life, I’ve learned a lot about the disease known as alcoholism and addiction cause I went through the drugs back when I got arrested and even watching SmackDown last week, when they aired the mugshots and stuff, that’s some heavy stuff, but it’s gonna be good shit because this is my last chance to get it right and I want to just get a few more good years out of this body and do the best I possibly can but yeah, it was weird man. So now I still have the legal situation, the black cloud that’s hanging over me, I haven’t been convicted.”
“When I got pulled over October 3 of 2019, the day before I called WWE and said ‘I need help. I need treatment. There’s something wrong with me, like with this alcohol thing,’ but yeah I’ve learned so much in recovery, just little things like one day at a time man, just focus on today, not drinking or not drugging and it’s just calling my sponsor everyday and talking to another alcoholic man. There’s something powerful about it when you admit what you are and you can like own that and just man, and there’s a huge piece in my heart and my mind knowing that if I never drink again I’m never going to get into any other trouble. Jeff Hardy + no drinking = no trouble cause all my troubles came from either drugs or alcohol. And like with the alcohol, I can’t drink like other people and I’ve surrendered and I’ve just manned up to that, you know and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
You can listen to the entire episode of After The Bell below:
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