Matt Hardy praises Former WWE Champion for giving him his best pure wrestling match 

Pro Wrestling legend Matt Hardy was recently asked what the best pure wrestling match of his career was. He named his 2003 Cruiserweight title match against a WWE legend as his best pure wrestling match.

Hardy has been in the wrestling business for 30 years and whilst he is well known by the masses for what he has done in hardcore matches, the former ECW Champion can certainly hang with the best technical wrestlers out there.

Recently on Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the AEW star said his favorite ever match from a wrestling standpoint was his 2003 encounter with Rey Mysterio on SmackDown for the Cruiserweight title.

"I would maybe say especially because we had a good story and people really gave a sh*t about it. Whenever I wrestled in the main event of SmackDown vs Rey Mysterio and he won the Cruiserweight title from me. Because we had a great story and it ended being a great payoff, the people were going bat sh*t during that match to. So I was super happy with that, that may be my favorite straightforward wrestling match." [From 41:02 to 41:21]

Watch the full video below:

Whilst Matt would go on to lose his title against the master of the 619, the Extreme stars’ willingness to put Rey over in that match enabled the masked wrestler to go on to become a main event level performer later down the line.

Matt Hardy on his WrestleMania match with Rey Mysterio

Prior to him losing against Rey on SmackDown, the 48-year old did manage to defeat the iconic luchador on the grandest stage of them all.

On another episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the former WWE Tag Team Champion stated how their WrestleMania 19 showdown had to be cut for time reasons, meaning many spots they planned did not feature.

"We had built up some momentum from the WrestleMania match where we had opened up the show and we had once again, maybe the story of my life, the story of being a pro wrestler, and the story of my career in the WWE, we lost a lot of time right before we went out there. So we burned through a lot of that match as well but we were still happy with it, It was a good pace setter of WrestleMania." [H/T 411Mania]

Despite the match taking place almost 20 years ago, both Rey and Matt are still key players in the wrestling business, with Mysterio working for WWE on Monday Night RAW and Hardy featuring as one of the veteran voices of AEW.

What is your favorite Matt Hardy match? Let us know in the comments section below.

If you use the quotes, please credit The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.