The Hardy Boyz remain one of the most iconic tag teams in pro wrestling, but in recent months, they've floundered in AEW. Jeff Hardy's return was meant to put them back on the right track, but Tony Khan's habit of forgetting about talent for weeks or months at a time appears to be in full effect.
Now, they've both opened up on that, with Jeff admitting he feels like a "ghost" backstage.
"When I first came back, it was pretty exciting," he told his brother on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast. "I said that in WWE I felt like I was a ghost just walking around backstage. Honestly, man, I kind of still feel like that at AEW, just because of not being involved in something cool. I feel like there's something so special that we have within us to really bring out."
After suggesting he could return to the "Antichrist of Professional Wrestling" character which proved a hit in TNA Wrestling, Matt chimed in with his thoughts on why it's been a "frustrating" time for them both.
"Creatively, just the way we've been utilized like the last four months, it's been very frustrating. We've been very patient but there has been a lot of frustration [with] the things we've done and how we've been utilized in some ways. So I feel like the natural thing to play off of it is channel[ing] that frustration and put it into what we're doing."
"To those people that I call malcontents, if they hate us, we will give them a reason to hate us. There's something we can do there to evolve our characters and once again reinvent into something we've never done. There's never been really an aggressive, take-by-any-means-necessary, cheat if you have to, break the rules if you have to, or 'bad' Hardy Boyz version of the Hardys."
"The two of us together in a new role, I think it would be very refreshing. I think it's something that we could use to get back to where we want to be."
It says a lot about AEW that two of its top stars are having to share their creative pitches on a podcast because Khan has left them sidelined without any clear direction. Whether that will change remains to be seen, but Matt and Jeff may be two more wrestlers who have come to regret leaving WWE for the money.
Stay tuned for updates.