Matt Hardy Could See Dolph Ziggler, Mustafa Ali & Shelton Benjamin Turning Up In AEW

With the news of the recent talent releases from WWE came the inevitable speculation about what will happen next to the talent in question.

Luckily, the wrestling industry in general is in a healthy place, with many different promotions and federations for wrestlers to ply their trade. For AEW’s Matt Hardy, though, three names stick out as likely AEW hires, with Hardy saying the following on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast when looking at the example set by Matt Cardona:

“He is the perfect living, breathing example of it, a guy who, when he was laid off, the stuff he’s done now where he’s the Indy God and he won all the titles. He’s just killing it on every level. He is willing to bust his ass, he’s willing to work, put in the sacrifice and do it yourself. You really have to be someone that’s almost like a D.I.Y. to really be able to go out and do that, but it is out there, if you want it, especially if you got great name value, someone like a Dolph Ziggler or someone like a Shelton Benjamin or someone like a Mustafa Ali. There’s a lot of guys who have a lot of great TV time and people will pay to see them. You go out and you bust your ass and you can do whatever. I think also it opens up some possibilities at AEW for some of these guys to maybe show up and do something there in 90 days," Hardy said.

Hardy continued; “I could see the three names I just mentioned, Shelton Benjamin, I could see Dolph Ziggler. I could see Mustafa Ali. I could see all those guys doing something there. I have to go back and look at the list.”

When looking at Ziggler especially, Hardy noted several similarities between himself and ‘The Show Off’:

“He’s also very much of the same mentality that I am. He’s very easygoing, he just wants to be there, he wants to do a good job, he wants to go out and wrestle, bust his ass, and he’s not problematic. He’s not a politicker. He just goes to work and does his job. To our defence, that’s not a bad thing, but it also can be something that holds you back in some capacity too if you’re not constantly politicking and trying to get your shit in and trying to make sure you fit your finger on the pulse of the promoter and what all he’s doing and where you’re going. Sometimes you have to be super interactive to stay on top of your s***, to make sure something happens like that," Hardy said.

H/T: Fightful