Think you know everything there is to know about one of the greatest WWE wrestlers of all time? Keep reading this article to learn about the most interesting facts about Jeff Hardy there is to know and tell us your favourite fact in the comments below!
As one of the most influential high-flyers in WWE history, Jeff Hardy played a key role in helping bring his unique style in the mainstream of wrestling. He is one of the most popular stars in the history of wrestling and could have been considered one of the greatest of all time if not for his own personal demons and drug addiction.
You may think you know a lot about the Charismatic Enigma. However, there are some interesting facts about the former WWE Champion that you definitely do not. Here are of the most interesting Jeff Hardy Facts that you will not know about the former WWE and current AEW star.
Interesting Jeff Hardy Facts
Here are 10 facts about Jeff Hardy that you may not have known. We’ll look at his professional and personal life including some of his most important matches a professional wrestling.
The life as a pro-wrestler is hard and Jeff Hardy has suffered that, struggling with drug and alcohol addiction his whole professional career (there’s one fact you can have for free!).
Jeff Hardy Is A Grand Slam Champion In WWE
The first Jeff Hardy fact has to do with one of his greatest achievements in wrestling. He became a grand slam champion in WWE, something many pro-wrestlers will never experience.
In his three stints in the WWE, Jeff Hardy became a main event wrestler. He also achieved something only a select few WWE Superstars can boast. In his first run with the company he became a multi-time tag team champion, alongside his brother Matt Hardy. He also won the European Championship, a now-defunct title that very few – if any – current active wrestlers can boast having held in their careers.
In his return to the company he added some even more prestigious belts to his collection. In 2007 he became the Intercontinental Champion for the first time in his career. His feud with Umaga will go down as an all-time great one and helped him on his way to becoming a Grand Slam Champion.
Jeff Hardy won both the WWE and World Heavyweight Championship before his release in 2009. He was the most popular wrestler in the company and the fans were in tears finally seeing him reach the top of the mountain. After his return to the company at Wrestlemania 33, he added the Untied States Championship to his collection, making Jeff Hardy a Grand Slam Champion in the WWE.
Jeff Hardy’s list of championships won in WWE is:
- WWE Championship
- World Heavyweight Championship (x2)
- WWE Intercontinental Championship (X5)
- WWE European Championship
- WWE United States Championship
- WWE Hardcore Championship
- WWE Light Heavyweight Championship
- WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship
- WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
- WWE World Tag Team Championship
- WCW Tag Team Championship
He Performed His Own Entrance Music In TNA
While Chris Jericho is the most famous wrestler with his own rock bad (he regularly tours with Fozzy all across the globe), he is not the only one.
Jeff Hardy has his own band of which he is the frontman and has done for many years. The band have not reached the heights of Fozzy but are really just a passion project for Hardy – a way a safely express his creativity. He does the same with his paintings and his lawn art, which he has become famous for in recent years.
Jeff Hardy’s band is named PeroxWhy?Gen and have been making music since 2003. They have released three studio albums and produced a number of songs, which include him famous TNA entrance music which was titled “another me”.
He also wrote and performed the song “Obsolete”, which was used during the beloved “Broken Hardy’s” run in TNA.
He Has Won Tag Team Championships in WWE, TNA and ROH
As part of the legendary “The Hardy Boyz” tag team, Matt and Jeff Hardy are one of the greatest duos of all time. Both went on to become world champions in and outside of WWE, but are best known for their work in ladder matches as a tag team.
They were brought into the WWE as a duo and made the most of their innate chemistry that only siblings could have. It is a fact that they are one of the best tag teams of all time and will rightly go into the WWE Hall of Fame as a duo one day.
They made history as one of the only teams to have won World Tag Team Championships in three major promotions.
They won five different titles in the WWE together and also held the TNA Tag Team Titles and the ROH Tag Team Titles in Ring of Honor. The ROH victory was against The Young Bucks as part of their dream feud before The Hardy’s returned to the WWE for their incredible pop at Wrestlemania 33.
Jeff Hardy Outsold John Cena In Merchandise During His Peak
In the late 2000s, John Cena was the biggest star in the company. He won multiple WWE Championships and sold countless amounts of T-Shirts, hats, chains and more pieces of merchandise. Nobody could come close to his popularity and amount of shirts sold, until Jeff Hardy exploded in popularity in 2009.
Jeff Hardy outsold John Cena in merchandise in 2009 when he won the WWE and World Heavyweight Championship. This was the first time in nearly a decade that somebody could match up with The Champ, with only a few stars in the future (like CM Punk) being able to match up to John Cena’s level of popularity.
This was confirmed in a tweet by Ringside News in 2015.
Click here to read more about Jeff Hardy outselling John Cena in merchandise.
He Founded His Own Wrestling Promotion
Hardy, along with his brother Matt and friends, started their own federation, the Trampoline Wrestling Federation (TWF) and mimicked the moves they saw on television. Once they grew too old for the trampoline and wanted to become real wrestlers, they formed a real wrestling promotion named the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts – also known as OMEGA.
This promotion featured Matt and Jeff Hardy, as well as other stars that would later sign for the WWE like Joey Matthews, Steve Corino and The Hurricane. They all portrayed a series of characters, with the most famous being Jeff Hardy’s alter-ego “Willow The Wisp“. The company folded in 1998 but have come back for one-off shows in recent years when the pair worked for TNA.
Jeff Hardy Was High On Drugs During A Match With Sting
During his time in TNA, Jeff Hardy continued to struggle with his own addiction issues. He struggled with taking drugs and alcohol, even going off secretly to ingest them so nobody else would find out.
This was always a huge issue but became a massive problem during a planned match at TNA Sacrifice 2011. Jeff Hardy was planned to wrestle against Sting for the TNA Heavyweight Championship in the pay per view main event, a dream match that pitted two top stars of their generation against one another.
However, Hardy came to the ring clearly high on drugs, stumbling around the ring in a delirious state. The anger on Sting’s face was clear as he hit Hardy with a Scorpion Death Drop after seconds of the match starting, holding Jeff Hardy down as he tried to kick out but to no avail. The crowd closed the show by chanting “Bullshit”, to which The Icon responded with “I agree!”
He Was Supposed To Win The Money In The Bank At Wrestlemania 24
Jeff Hardy was supposed to win the Money In The Bank Ladder match in 2008, but a failed drugs test put a stop to the proposed plan.
The MITB contract was competed for in a ladder match at Wrestlemania, with the victory getting a guaranteed championship match at any time within the next year. This can be used any time, including after the champion had been involved in a match or was beaten down inside the ring. This basically gave the holder a guaranteed title reign and was a sure-fire way to fire them into the main event with little build up needed.
Prior to WrestleMania 24, rumours spread that Jeff Hardy was going to win the Money In The Bank Ladder match at WrestleMania 24. This has been theorised for years after the event, given that he was not involved in the event at all.
Jeff Hardy missed out on Wrestlemania 24 and the subsequent ladder match victory, with Matt Hardy confirming he was set to win the bout. He also revealed the reason why the win was taken off him – a wellness policy violation caused by Hardy taking a pill (or series of pills) during a WWE tour in Mexico.
Jeff Hardy Debuted In WWE At Age 16
Jeff Hardy made his WWE debut at age sixteen on May 23rd, 1996. Wrestling under the name Keith Davis, he lied to the company about his age so he could work as a jobber on Monday Night Raw.
His first match in the WWE was in a squash match against Razor Ramon. He lost the match handily as he was decimated by the Razor’s Edge but had his foot in the door of the company despite his young age.
He would continue to wrestle in other enhancement matches against talent like the 1-2-3 Kid, before he and his brother signed for the company some years later.
His Favourite Wrestlers
Jeff Hardy has inspired multiple wrestlers since his debut in the 1990s, but when he was a child he had a number of stars that he idolised. Jeff Hardy’s favourite wrestlers were Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and Sting, an eclectic mix of some of the biggest stars in wrestling history.
Luckily for him, he would eventually get to wrestle against Shawn Michaels and Sting. As previously mentioned, his match against Sting was a disaster but he got to team with him again in AEW in 2022, so it seems the bad blood between the two men has finally been quashed.
His Face Painting Is Very Important To Him
The tenth and final Jeff Hardy interesting fact is about the famous face paint that he has used for long spells in his career.
Hardy is recent years became infamous for painting his face in various weird and wonderful ways. He has a different design weekly and does all the designs himself, allowing him to realise his creativity in interesting and unique ways. He spoke to the WWE backstage to discuss what his face paint means to him.
“The face paint is something that I just… when I don’t have time to paint on the canvas at home because the WWE schedule is so brutal, as you know, it’s just an outlet”.
“I can get to the building and have this image in my head and being that I don’t have a canvas I can just use my face as what I want to try to bring to life”.
“When I am all painted up, it’s like I… I kind of feel like it’s my alien skin. What does my soul look like when it gets out of its body and I’m on a star looking back at Earth, and all these crazy thoughts. Will I look like an alien? All these artistic thoughts come into mind.”
“Like it shows artistic freedom and freedom of your soul. It’s like an expression at its best. I think I am more sociable when I’m all painted up. I think I feel normal, quite normal, a lot more normal than when I’m all shy and not painted. That’s Jeff Hardy, the Charismatic Enigma at his best when he comes out with the face paint. The face-painted freak, man, that’s by far a compliment in my book.”
Jeff Hardy Was The Rock Last Opponent On Monday Night Raw
The match took place on the April 7, 2003 episode of Monday Night Raw, just weeks before The Rock would wrestle against Goldberg at Backlash 2003. After that, The Rock only wrestled one more match before going full-time into Hollywood, not wrestling another match until 2011.
Jeff Hardy lost to The Rock (with then-on screen girlfriend Trish Stratus leading him to the ring) in a fun match that showed just how high the company were on the Charismatic Enigma. Sadly, he failed a drug test just two weeks later and was fired by the company for refusing to go to rehab for drug and alcohol issues.
Did you know any of these 10 facts about Jeff Hardy? Let us know down in the comments which was your favourite and if there’s anything else you know about the former WWE Champion that you think we may have missed.
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