"It was frustrating." — Matt Hardy unhappy with AEW run; teases character change

Matt Hardy left WWE earlier in the year to join AEW. Unfortunately, his timing of leaving the company and joining AEW coincided with the pandemic and he has not received the enormous crowd support that he otherwise would have, although his support on social media is certainly significant.

Matt Hardy has joined AEW pic.twitter.com/TqlIHdVg3j

— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) March 19, 2020

Now, in the face of a changing industry, Matt Hardy has decided to show a part of himself on camera on AEW that has never before made it on film, and that's his own true self. He talked about it in a recent video that he released (h/t Fightful).

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Matt Hardy on being frustrated in AEW

While Matt Hardy has certainly been extremely entertaining as Broken Matt Hardy, without a crowd to interact with, he has felt that the gimmick has not had the same effect that he wanted from it, and this has frustrated him.

"When I first made the decision to come to All Elite Wrestling, I was excited. I thought 'the sky is the limit, no doubt.' What I expected when I first debuted as Broken Matt Hardy was every single Wednesday on Dynamite; a sold out arena across America. I thought there would be thousands of people screaming at the top of their lungs 'DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!' That isn't what happened. What I didn't expect was that Broken Matt would debut in the first-ever AEW empty arena event. Broken Matt never performed in front of AEW fans and the passionate fanbase is one of the coolest things about AEW. If I came in and did Broken Matt, he's such an interactive fan-friendly performer and character, I thought, 'This will be a hit, this will be great, this is gonna be my greatest run yet.' That's not what happened and it was frustrating."

Matt Hardy and Santana of The Inner Circle shared a rather... special moment

MATT HARDY IS AWAKENING SANTANA. And then hits him with a headbutt. That will put him to sleep again though?#AEW #AEWDynamite #WWE #AEWonTNT pic.twitter.com/quWJKoiCsF

— 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘯 (@PWOrator) June 25, 2020

Matt Hardy tried to do a different character, with all his personas getting featured at different times during matches and segments. However, the moment he started a story with Sammy Guevara on AEW, the wrestler got suspended.

Now, Matt Hardy has decided to just be himself more and that's the character change he wants to bring to AEW.

"I decided, maybe it's time to do my part and try and heal some of this division, do what I can to put it back together, try and be a voice of reason. I've had a lot of experiences. Maybe now, it's time for me, on AEW programming, to just be real. Be someone that I have never been on television before and that's me. Maybe it's time for me to be Matthew Hardy. Maybe it's time for me to just be me."