Matt Hardy On Pre-Taping Matches, AR Fox Almost Missed His AEW Contract Offer

On a recent edition of his ” The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, Matt Hardy explained the drawbacks of pre-taping wrestling events, calling it a necessary evil in the larger scope of the professional wrestling industry.

You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:

On the downsides of pre-taping events: “I mean, I think, unfortunately, it kind of is true. That’s just kind of the world we live in, especially when it comes to a sporting event. Because if there’s going to be thousands of people there, tens of thousands of people there. Obviously, spoilers are gonna get out. People are gonna go seek it out and find out what it is. Then, once you know the results, you don’t have to tune in to television, because you already know what’s going to be on, and there’s no suspense. It does take away from the programming some.”

On why the industry defaults to pre-taping in many situations: “At the end of the day, it’s almost a necessary evil, especially for conserving money and expenses and taping things like that. To do a live Dynamite and a live Rampage would be astronomical compared to doing Rampage on Wednesday nights like they typically do. So I understand why they do it. I think there is still a portion of the audience that they don’t care, and they’re fine with it, but the fact of the matter is, there are so many people that want to see their sporting events live.”

On a recent edition of the “Talk is Jericho” podcast, AR Fox recalled receiving a contract offer from AEW following his Dynamite debut and how he almost missed the high-profile email.

Fox signed with AEW in November 2022. He said,

“They offered me the contract after the [Death Triangle] match. It was nuts, it was crazy. I couldn’t really say anything. I was covering my face, I didn’t know how to react. They did it like they were going to do a after match promo, the whole set up thing for me and then Lexy goes, ‘Oh, we just got word that Tony Khan is offering you a contract, what do you say?’ I might not have said anything, it just took me completely off guard. We just had got done with the match, I was trending on Twitter after that match.”

When asked if he called his family and friends about the news, Fox stated,

“Yeah, I’m calling them, showing them, all of this stuff. I’m checking my email the next morning because they’re telling me it’s gonna come the next morning, cause they’re telling me it’s gonna come in in the morning or they’re telling me it’s on the way or something like that. They sent it so quick that I had missed it, and I kept checking above. I remember seeing it in like the middle of the night cause I just couldn’t sleep, it was nuts.”