Darby Allin says Matt & Jeff Hardy showed him he could make it in wrestling
Darby Allin says it was Matt and Jeff Hardy who showed him he could make it in wrestling.
Allin took part in an interview with ESPN ahead of his title defense against Mike Bailey on AEW Dynamite and his match against MJF scheduled for AEW Double or Nothing this weekend.
During the conversation, Darby reflected on watching the TLC match at WrestleMania 17 as an eight-year-old.
“[Jeff and Matt Hardy] definitely made me feel like it was possible because it wasn’t about their physique,” Allin said. “It was more about whatever they’re willing to endure for the crowd.”
Darby also said he’s at peace with whatever may happen to him in the ring one day.
“If the worst that is going to happen to me is dying, so be it,” Allin said. “It’s fine, but it’s not worth sitting by and watching this life go by and doing nothing interesting with it.”
“Instead of shying away from the fire, I just kept going toward it until I could get into the fire because that pain is what made me feel alive,” he continued.
Thirteen years after watching the TLC match, Darby moved back to Seattle and enrolled in the Buddy Wayne Academy. Nick Wayne was nine years old when Darby came to train at his father’s school and said he immediately recognized there was something different about him.
“The second I laid eyes on him, I said to myself that he’s different,” Nick Wayne told ESPN.
Wayne said Darby became more involved in his development after Buddy Wayne died from a heart attack in 2017.
“He was incredibly disciplined,” Wayne continued, “and taught me how to live without fear as well as time being the most valuable thing on this earth that can’t afford to be wasted.”
Darby also discusses his pairing with Sting in AEW, his early career, and enrolling in an Arizona film school before deciding to give pro wrestling a shot.
His full interview with ESPN is available here.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.