The WWE boxing match between Matt Hardy and Evander Holyfield in 2016 almost didn’t happen, thanks to JBL.
On the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the All Elite Wrestling star spoke about working with Evander Holyfield while working for WWE and how Fit Finlay tried to pay him $1,000 to knock out the legendary boxer.
“I remember there was a huge deal,” Matt Hardy recalled. “Fit Finlay was the ringleader of this movement. He said, ‘Matt, I swear to God, if you out there and you knock him out, I’ll give you $1,000,’ he said, ‘Who else will give him $1,000 If he tries to knock him out?’ And then there was this whole thing going on in the room, and I’m like, ‘You guys are gonna get me f*cking killed! I’m trying to be a professional here!'”
If that wasn’t bad enough, Hardy went on to reveal that JBL’s comments about Holyfield’s personal life almost caused the boxer to walk out on the company before appearing on the broadcast.
“And then speaking of getting people killed and whatnot, a very funny story I would like to interject here. So guess who was doing commentary for this event? There was JBL on there, and there was a point where he was talking with someone, and their feed was on, and it was live. You see these hot mic moments now in politics; it happens a lot, right?
“So they were on a hot mic, and someone had asked Bradshaw a question and said, ‘Oh my God, what do you think about Evander Holyfield? Are you gonna go back and talk to him? Does your wife want to take a picture with him?’ Bradshaw said, ‘Well, hell! I want to keep them as far away from my wife as I can. I think he’s got babies with several different women.’ He said that comment or something like that, and apparently, he does. He’s got some kids with different women or whatever the deal is. That’s not the point here. I’m just saying he wasn’t making that up. But then, in reality, that feed was also going into Evander Holyfield’s locker room.
“And the speaker was on, and they heard this, and his manager was his new fiancée/wife. So then she got furious over this, and they went to Vince, and they almost pulled out of this.”
Hardy said that he already talked with Holyfield about their segment and got along really well. He said Holyfield was fine with the segment and trusted Hardy not to actually hit him, but the hot mic remarks nearly but things in jeopardy.
“And then his team said like, ‘I don’t know if we can do this. These disrespectful comments this guy said. This is unbelievable. I can’t believe they would say this.’ And then I remember Vince cuts a promo on JBL, ‘What the hell are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. Can’t you just shut the f*ck up?!’ Whatever he ended up saying to him, I don’t know. And then we were getting ready to go very soon.
“They got him to stay around. He stuck it out. He was hanging out. We’re gonna do the fight, and Michael [Hayes] said, ‘You got to go back in there and talk to Evander. Make sure he’s good with everything.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not really looking forward to that.’ And I go in. I said, ‘Hey, Evander, you want to talk about things again before we go out there?’ and he says, ‘We’re good. I’ll see you out there.’ And you can tell he’s annoyed as shit.
“So we go out, and we have the fight. He’s professional as could be. He was great. We took pictures at the end. And once in a while, I’ve even seen a tweet from him on Twitter or whatever; he was great. Nothing but good stuff to say about Evander Holyfield. But at the end of the night, I’ll never forget we were back there, and I was talking with Vince and Bradshaw. And Vince said, ‘F*ck! John, what the f*ck is wrong with you? We almost lost Evander, damn it!’ And he said, ‘Are you kidding me, Vince? We almost lost Matt!’ Which even made Vince laugh.”
READ MORE: Matt Hardy Witnessed All Out Brawl, Says The Elite Didn’t Do Anything Wrong In The Situation
What do you make of Matt Hardy’s comments? Are you shocked to hear that JBL almost caused WWE to lose Holyfield? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy with a link back to this article for the transcription.
