Matt Hardy

Matthew Moore Hardy (born September 23, 1974) is an American professional wrestler.

He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW).

He is best known for his tenures in WWE and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).

Their mother died of brain cancer in 1987.

Hardy played baseball as a child and throughout high school, but had stopped by his senior year.

He also played football, either as a linebacker or a defensive end.

Hardy was a good student at Union Pines High School in North Carolina, and was a nominee for the "Morehead Award", a scholarship to any university in North Carolina.

Hardy attended University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he majored in engineering; after a year, however, he dropped out due to his father being ill.

He then attended Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst to gain his associate degree.

Hardy, along with his brother Jeff and friends, started their own federation, the Trampoline Wrestling Federation (TWF) and mimicked the moves they saw on television.

Shortly after Hardy sent in a tape for the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) Amateur Challenge using the ring name High Voltage, a tag team named High Voltage began competing in WCW, causing Hardy to change his name to Surge.

A few years later, it was revealed to him by Chris Kanyon that the tape had been kept in the WCW Power Plant, watched multiple times, and that the name High Voltage was blatantly stolen from it.

Beginning in 1994, The Hardys wrestled for several North Carolina-based independent circuit promotions and adapted a number of alter-egos.

As The Wolverine, Hardy captured the New England Wrestling Alliance (NEWA) Championship in May 1994.

Hardy worked as a jobber for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1994 up until he signed a full-time contract in 1998.

His first WWF match was against Nikolai Volkoff on the May 23, 1994, episode of Monday Night Raw, which he lost by submission.

A night later at a taping of WWF Wrestling Challenge, he lost a match against Owen Hart.

He continued to wrestle sporadically in the WWF throughout 1994 and 1995, losing matches against Crush, Irwin R. Schyster, Razor Ramon, Hakushi, Owen Hart, the imposter Undertaker, Hunter Hearst Helmsley and "The Ringmaster" Steve Austin.

As High Voltage, he teamed with Venom to claim the New Frontier Wrestling Association (NFWA) Tag Team Championship in March 1995.

A month later, High Voltage defeated the Willow for the NFWA Championship.

Hardy teamed with Jeff for the first time in the WWF in 1996, losing to teams such as The Smoking Gunns and The Grimm Twins on WWF television.

In 1997, Matt and Jeff created their own wrestling promotion, The Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts (frequently abbreviated to OMEGA Championship Wrestling, or simply OMEGA), in which Matt competed under the name High Voltage.

Both Matt and Jeff took apart the ring and put it back together at every event they had, while Matt sewed all the costumes worn in OMEGA.

Matt and Jeff had matches with The Headbangers (Thrasher and Mosh) twice, and Kurrgan twice in 1997.

It was during this time that Matt and Jeff experimented with different ring names, at one stage being called Ingus (Matt) and Wildo Jinx (Jeff).

In Matt's final singles match for the promotion before signing a full-time contract he lost to Val Venis on a taping of Shotgun in 1998.

It was not until 1998, however, (at the height of The Attitude Era) that the Hardy brothers were given full-time WWF contracts and sent to train with former wrestler Dory Funk Jr.. The Hardy Boyz used a cruiserweight, fast-paced high flying style in their matches, often leaping from great heights to do damage to their opponents (and themselves in the process).

The promotion folded in October 1999, after both Matt and Jeff signed with the World Wrestling Federation.

In 1999, while feuding with Edge and Christian, the duo briefly picked up Michael Hayes as a manager.

At King of the Ring, The Hardyz defeated Edge and Christian to earn the #1 contendership for the WWF Tag Team Championship.

With his brother, Jeff, Hardy gained prominence in WWF's tag team division during the 2000s due to his participation in TLC matches.

He is a 14-time world tag team champion, having held the WWE World Tag Team Championship six times, the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship three times, the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship, ROH World Tag Team Championship, and WCW Tag Team Championship once each, and the TNA World Tag Team Championships twice.

They are considered one of the major teams that revived tag team wrestling during the Attitude Era.

Wrestling through four separate decades, Hardy has kept himself relevant partially through a variety of different gimmicks and his use of social media.

In 2002, Hardy began a solo career in WWE.

His subsequent "Version 1" persona was named Best Gimmick by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Hardy's eccentric "Broken" gimmick, which he debuted in 2016 (and which was renamed "Woken" following his subsequent WWE return), garnered praise from wrestling critics and earned him multiple awards, including a second Best Gimmick award, becoming one of the most talked about characters in all of wrestling.

As a singles wrestler, Hardy has won three world championships (one ECW Championship, and two TNA World Heavyweight Championships).

Hardy was born in Cameron, North Carolina, the son of Gilbert and Ruby Moore Hardy.

He is the older brother of Jeff Hardy.