As The Deleters Of Worlds, Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy established themselves as a fan-favourite tag team in WWE, eventually winning the RAW Tag Team Championships.
Vince McMahon never appeared to have a huge amount of faith in their respective gimmicks, though, and largely wasted the "Woken" Matt Hardy who had proven such a hit in TNA. As for Bray, it's frequently been reported the late WWE Superstar often clashed with the WWE Chairman over creative.
Reflecting on his partnership with Bray in the wake of the former WWE Champion's death last week, Hardy recently shed new light on The Wyatt Family leader's unique back-and-forth with Vince.
"[He] and Vince had a very interesting relationship, almost like a father-son relationship in some way," the AEW star explains. "I feel like that probably came to be because he had only known the WWE system, so Vince was the only boss he ever had."
"I feel like there’s times when Vince shows you all this love, but then if you do something he doesn’t necessarily like or he disagrees with, then he’s really tough on you like a father in many ways. I feel like they, more than a lot of wrestlers who work under Vince, they had this weird, almost father-son relationship. If Vince was mad at him, he would be very sad and disappointed, like, 'Oh my God, I didn’t make him happy."
"Then there were times where he would be totally upset with him. Then there were times that Vince treated him so good and he wanted to move him into the best spot possible and he would love his stuff and he would call him a genius and say that was brilliant and this was great," Hardy continued. "It was interesting. "It feels like their relationship was deeper than just boss-employee."
"It was almost personal like he was a father figure to Bray in some ways. If Bray made him happy, it made Bray happy. If Bray made him upset, it made Bray disappointed."
As for whether he believes Vince valued Bray's creativity, Hardy added: "Yes, absolutely. He did. He appreciated his depth when it came to creativity. I have no doubts about that."
This echoes the relationship it seems McMahon has with many of his top stars, and we'd imagine the Chairman was hit hard by the news of Bray's death, just like the rest of the pro wrestling world and its fans.