Matt Hardy says he was honored to hold the ECW Championship.
By 2008, Hardy was already an established veteran, and due to the WWE Draft, he moved to the ECW brand while he was the reigning WWE United States Championship. He subsequently became one of the brand’s top stars during his time there.
Speaking on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy described how he felt about moving to ECW. When asked whether he viewed it as a demotion, he stated that he looked at as a challenge, but he also saw the move as an opportunity.
“I did take it as a challenge, and I did learn shortly thereafter I was drafted to ECW that I was gonna be dropping the US Title and that I was going to win the ECW World Title, which I thought was cool,” Hardy said. “I didn’t look at it as a demotion. I looked at it as I was gonna get an opportunity to be the centerpiece of a brand, which I think is a great, cool opportunity. It wasn’t a demotion, it was a reward more than anything, so I was pretty excited about it.”
Hardy won the ECW Championship at WWE Unforgiven 2008, and when asked who told him about the plan to put the title on him, Hardy noted that Vince McMahon personally informed him.
“It was Vince, I heard specifically from Vince,” Hardy said. “He said like, ‘I’m taking you to this brand because I’m gonna build the brand around you for a while.’ He probably tried to boost me up a little bit when he did it, but he was rewarding me, and he was giving me a great opportunity as well.
The veteran also made it clear that holding the title was an honor, and it felt both validating and rewarding.
“Obviously it was an honor. Whenever you are chosen to be the champion of a brand, that’s a great honor, and you feel very validated and rewarded. It was in Cleveland, but that’s also a crowd that is very tough as well, so I remember just winning and getting that reaction in Cleveland, and they were very enthusiastic about me winning, [which] felt special as well. It’s nice to know whenever you’re over with the crowd. That’s the biggest barometer if you’re truly over or not, the live crowd.”
Hardy also commented on how it was special to hold the world title at the time that his brother, Jeff won the WWE Championship.
“Very cool, man. Very cool moment, and we both realized it,” Hardy said. “I say this all the time, like we were recognizing the good days while we were in them. Ae knew that was a good day. Not only had we been very well established as a tag team and won the tag team titles multiple times, but just to both have singles heavyweight championships, single world titles, that was a very cool moment. I know we took a lot of pictures of that, and I look back on those moments and that time with a lot of pride.”
Hardy later dropped the title to Jack Swagger and started feuding with Jeff. But his ECW run remains memorable because it delivered the first world title win of his impressive career.
