Early on in their WWF careers, the Hardy Boyz had a brief storyline alliance with Terri Runnels, who Matt Hardy says pitched some interesting ideas to try and sell the trio as a more cohesive unit.
The debut episode of Podcast Heat’s The Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy saw Matt Hardy and co-host Jon Alba (and Jeff Hardy, who joined the show as a special guest) look back on the epic ladder match between the Hardys and Edge & Christian at WWF No Mercy in 1999. The match at No Mercy was the final match in a best-of-five series that the WWF dubbed the “Terri Invitational Tournament,” but it also served as the first-ever tag team ladder match in the company. The winning team not only walked away with Terri as their manager, but $100,000 was up for grabs as well.
The Hardys won the match and would go on to feud with Edge & Christian (and the Dudleys) in some classics over the next few years, but they wouldn’t stick with Terri for much longer. Matt explained that Terri worked well as a manager for them in a sense, but neither team really needed her in hindsight. Matt spoke about how Terri pitched some ideas while they were still together, including getting physically involved in some matches and getting busted open to sell an attack angle.
“The whole thing with Terri — and she wasn’t really a speaker for us, she didn’t really speak a lot, she was just eye candy, more or less to the team. Someone who was representing us as a manager. I felt like she was almost a means to the end as far as establishing the Terri Invitational Tournament, so that’s how she was tied along to it. I don’t really think myself and Jeff or Edge and Christian really needed her in hindsight,” Matt explained, “but she really did want to work and be part of the unit, which I really appreciated.
“I remember she had the idea over and over where some heels jumped her and she gigged, do you remember that [Jeff]? And we [would have] come to her defense? She wanted to do that, but [WWE] weren’t going to have any of it, especially in that day and age, the way they looked at women or Divas. And then there was also a point where she wanted to do something where I got taken out and she was able to jump in and Jeff would maybe jump off of her back [to do Poetry In Motion]. I don’t even know if she could have supported him,” Matt added, “but she did have ideas that she wanted to try and make it feel like more of a cohesive unit, which I appreciate.”
Jeff added that Terri did give them a bit of a cool factor, especially among male viewers.
“I think Terri gave us a little bit of an edge,” Jeff said. “Especially with the young college kids. ‘Oh man, they’re the shit! That lady is hot!’ and all that kind of stuff, it’s all been amazing.”
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