WWE leaked fake story to help top superstar's storyline; Vince McMahon's reaction

Former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. has lifted the lid on the lengths the company went to help Jeff Hardy's storyline ahead of his first world title run.

Hardy won his first world title in WWE at Armageddon 2008 when he defeated Edge and Triple H in a triple threat match. His first and only reign as WWE Champion lasted 42 days as he was defeated by Edge at Royal Rumble 2009.

On his latest Wrestling with Freddie podcast, Freddie Prinze Jr. opened up about writing for Jeff Hardy when he was in the company. He discussed Hardy's road to winning the world title and how the company threw a curveball in the storyline by feeding wrong information to the media.

"We even did an angle - I get mad at the way the media treats wrestling, I just always hated it - so we even pulled one on them where we took that Jeff storyline, of him being the screw-up that WWE had, and leaked a story that wasn't even true, with Jeff's permission, to CNN or somebody and they bought it. If CNN hears this, 'Ha! I got you suc*ers. Deal with that!' It wasn't even true. It was going to help us hide Jeff so that he could be this surprise entrance and make this match a triple threat."

He went on to detail the aftermath and how Vince McMahon liked the whole thing:

"They ran with that story and we got to burn 'em on it later. Vince [McMahon] liked that we got to give them the middle finger because the media has never been good to the WWE or WWF," said Freddie Prize Jr. (28:55 to 30:01)

Prinze Jr. explained that he had pushed hard with management to put the title on Hardy after being given the task by Michael Hayes.

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Jeff Hardy's other WWE world title reigns

Jeff Hardy held the world title in the company thrice - the WWE Championship once and the World Heavyweight Championship twice.

His two World Heavyweight Championship reigns came a year after his first world title reign, when he defeated his old nemesis, Edge, in a Ladder match at Extreme Rules in 2009. But his reign lasted a mere minutes as CM Punk cashed in his contract to win the title.

Hardy once again got his hands on the World Heavyweight Championship a month later when he defeated Punk at Night of Champions, but lost it once again to the current AEW star a month later at SummerSlam. That was Hardy's last run as a world champion in the company as he left in 2009, joining TNA/IMPACT Wrestling.

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