One style that Matt Hardy has utilized his entire professional wrestling career came as a result of studying the career of “The Total Package” Lex Luger.
On the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the All Elite Wrestling star talked about growing up with Tracy Caddell, the late father of WWE NXT Superstar Cameron Grimes. During the conversation with co-host Jon Alba, Hardy revealed that Caddell was a big fan of WCW legend “The Total Package” Lex Luger.
“We went to school together. We were on the same bus. And his parents knew my parents,” Matt Hardy said. “I didn’t know [he was a wrestling fan] until he approached me at the gym, and that’s how we first hit it off, and he loved wrestling. I mean, he was passionate about wrestling like I’m passionate about wrestling. So that really bonded us, and he was just a good quality too. He’s one of those guys that I would say even if he went deeper into the business, he was probably too nice for his own good because there are some guys like that in pro wrestling.”
When asked if he had any influences, Hardy revealed that Caddell was a huge fan of Lex Luger and that he too copied some mannerisms he saw Lex do during promos.
“Lex Luger without a doubt,” Matt Hardy said. “I mean, even when he did it, his name was T.C. Flexer. He wanted to be like a muscle guy, a body guy. He would love to do the rack. He would mimic a lot of Luger’s stuff. I want to give a shout-out to Lex Luger too. I’ve got to know Lex Luger a little bit too, and it’s always great whenever I see him. He’s just a reborn man.
“I see [Lex] at Cons and stuff recently, and he’ll be on Twitter, and he says, ‘Man, I love the stuff you post how it’s such a good combination between work and real life stuff and whatnot. You’ll do character stuff, but then you’ll do character stuff with your kids and your family.’ He’s such a sweetheart, but one thing I’ve never told him this before, and I meant to at some point. I’m a big — especially early in promos, and I still do it now; I’m a big hand talker.
“This and that and that and blah, blah. I got that from Lex Luger without a doubt because I loved his promos at many, many points in his career. He wasn’t always the best promo guy ever. But just the way he spoke and his mannerisms, and his conviction on things, I really dug. And I feel like whenever I would do promos as High Voltage back in the day on the trampoline, I was very much a hand user just because of Lex Luger, and he would do it to where he’d make his points and be moving his hands as he’s doing and I loved that.”
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What do you make of Matt Hardy’s comments? Are you surprised that he got his hand gesture promo style from Lex Luger? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
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