Big Money Matt was born from Matt Hardy's real-life experiences.
Hardy recently appeared as a guest on the MCW Cast and spoke about his earliest days in the wrestling business and how, technically, he and his brother, Jeff, were never officially trained. He continued on to detail their time working with George South and Gary Sabaugh and how those experiences provided much of the inspiration for the Big Money Matt character we see Hardy portraying on TV today.
"Then we met the Italian Stallion (Gary Sabaugh) and George South and we ended up hooking with them and doing some of their shows because they needed a few more guys to actually go to WWE and we technically were never officially trained," Matt began by saying. "Then it got to the gig where we went to the WWE the first time. Then we would work with Stallion and George South every weekend. They would work every Friday and Saturday. We’d drive, you know, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, wherever it would be, and we'd make their shows and we'd work for them for free but then we would go every three or four months to WWE. Whenever we’d get 150 bucks, you know, each of the three nights we do Raw or Superstars and a Challenge, we get 150 bucks and we had to turn over $100 for a booking fee. That was what they charged. That’s a true story. I'm not gonna lie, that's where a lot of the inspiration for my Big Money Matt character came, especially when I started doing the thing with Private Party in the beginning and taking 30% because they legitimately took 66% of our money when we would go to WWE in those days. 66%. WWE would give cash, they’d say, you know, ‘We’ll pay for double rooms for all your talents.’ They’d stick four or five people in a room and pocket the rest."
Hardy's career began in the early 90s and has seen him perform all over the world, most notably in WWE, TNA, Ring of Honor, and now, AEW. As the head of the Hardy Family Office, Matt manages Private Party, The Butcher, The Blade and The Bunny, and TH2.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Rampage tonight beginning at 10 p.m. EST with a post-show review immediately following its conclusion.
If you use the quote above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.