WWE Once Scrapped Plans For Jeff Hardy To Win Money In The Bank
Jeff Hardy has enjoyed a long and successful wrestling career.he has won singles and tag team gold in WWE, TNA/Impact, ROH, and all over the independent scene. But his WWE career would’ve been a slight bit better had an unfortunate incident in Mexico not derailed WWE’s plans for him.
Jeff’s brother Matt Hardy spoke on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast about WWE’s plans for his brother. According to Matt, Freddie Prinze Jr. was a big proponent of Jeff’s and pushed for the company to groom him for the world title position. Part of that process meant winning the Money in the Bank briefcase.
For anyone curious about timelines, Freddie Prinze Jr. first WWE stint lasted from 2008 to 2009 and Jeff Hardy was said to have been booked to win the MITB briefcase at WrestleMania XXIV in 2008.
Vince McMahon to Jeff Hardy: “What the f*ck have you done?!”
Matt spoke about how plans were put in place to elevate Jeff to the world title position:
“That was that was the plan. He was gonna win this Money in the Bank briefcase. And I think at this point, they had pulled the trigger and decided they wanted to try and turn him into the champion. I know Freddy Prinze had been given this edict like, get Jeff Hardy ready for the championship.
That’s around the time too when he was starting to paint his face again, if I’m not mistaken, that they started leaning into some stuff that was very Jeff Hardy-ish. And Freddie Prinze was kind of leading that charge in many, many ways.”
But then, as Matt explained, all of those plans were cast aside when Jeff Hardy took something that caused him to violate WWE’s Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy.
“Jeff was in Mexico on an international tour. And at some point there, he ended up taking something, some sort of pill or substance for, I don’t know if it was his back or whatever it was, but he did end up getting popped in on a drug test.
And one of the things I remember he told me, Michael Hayes had called him at home and said ‘Hey, like, what is going on here? I can’t believe he did all this.’ And whenever he said, Vince is gonna call you in just a few minutes. Alright, so be ready to answer the phone.’ And then I guess Vince called him and Jeff’s like, ‘hello’. And he’s like, ‘What the f*ck have you done?’’
That was his greeting right from the beginning. You know, and I guess they talked it through. And at the end of the conversation, Jeff said, they spoke for a while. They seem to be kosher, you know, and Jeff just apologised and regretted making that mistake. But it was what it was.”
Despite those setbacks, Jeff Hardy did end up winning world title gold. After being drafted to SmackDown in June 2008, Hardy challenged for the WWE Championship. He lost in his first three attempts at the title at Unforgiven, No Mercy, and Cyber Sunday, but then won a Triple Threat match at Armageddon to become WWE Champion for the first time.