Matt Hardy Quotes

Starting young has definitely helped my success. All the experience I gained by touring with other players as a backing artist helped to prepare me for my own big break.

The fact that I'm still able to wrestle on the indies and yet still do my stuff in NXT, and the fact that I wrestled in front of 15,000 people at the Barclays Center at TakeOver, and then, the following weekend, I was still doing indie shows, is wild.

I always wanted to be the worst wrestler on the shows I was on so I could just learn from the guys above me, and that's a great way to be in your first few years of wrestling.

I did a year and a half of independent wrestling before I got into the WWE. It was nothing really. I didn't make the towns. I don't even say I was an indy wrestler.

When I began in Ring of Honor, I was very fortunate to get on shows and get looked at and get the experience. I was working with a ton of guys who had more experience than me at the time, like AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels.

I don't think I'd be in WWE, and I wouldn't be in NXT, if it wasn't for my time in EVOLVE and Dragon Gate USA and things like that.

To a degree... you wanna make your way in the industry, so you kind of get what you're given at first.

I started training at the Monster Factory, the ROH dojo, CZW, and I trained there. And eventually, I had a tryout with WWE.

Back in 2004 I trained at an independent wrestling school and performed in front of crowds of around 200, then I got signed to a contract with the WWE to continue my development.

I think the guys who have been on NXT and got to go to 'RAW' or 'SmackDown' got the full experience. That's what I want.

When I was 17 years old, I was given the opportunity to be trained as a wrestler. At the time, I never really thought about making it a career. I only saw it as a chance to do something that I always wanted to do.

When I first broke in, I wanted to be the best technical wrestler on the planet.

When I was a little kid, WWF was all I had access to. After a year or two when I found the indies and could watch wrestling live, it was just as big a deal to me as WWF.

Was I a fan of WWE? Yeah, of course, but I knew it was not going to be a thing for me, until NXT came to the foreground and a lot of my friends who I was competing against on the independent scene were getting signed.

I've always said that if I can make 20 years in-ring, anything beyond that is just a cherry on top, so 2020 I'm looking to challenging and healthy so hopefully if I can do two of those things, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a good year for me.

I was in the independent scene for two years before I got the call from the WWE.

If you would have asked me three or four years ago when I started wrestling whether I would have worked for any other company than WWE in the long-term, I would have told you no.

I like doing the shows with Ring of Honor, but I don't want to leave Japan.

It started with Dragon Gate USA, where I started as a guy on the pre-show and wasn't promised anything. I kept coming and doing what I do and ended up on the main show and eventually won their championship.

The fact is, there's a ton of opportunities out there now for professional wrestlers which, when I was coming through, weren't really there. The only game in town realistically was WWE, and it was very, very difficult to see yourself working anywhere outside of that.

I want to work with guys like Rey Mysterio, The Undertaker, Edge and have good feuds and do entertaining stuff, and I know I'm capable of it.

For the majority of my career, I worked everywhere but the WWE.

Promoters saw the potential in me and the value in me. It was because of companies like Evolve, PWG, Progress, and Beyond Wrestling. Those are the big ones that gave me a push and made my name worth something on the indies.

In the ring-wise, I've learned a lot from working with Bayley.

I trained at All Pro Wrestling in the U.S. Later, I signed up with the New Japan Pro Wrestling. Then WWE noticed me.