In a recent interview with the 411 Wrestling Interviews podcast, Emmy Award-winning sportscaster Jon Alba discussed his new podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.
During the chat, Alba explained how the show came together, and more. Check out the highlights below.
Jon Alba on the reason why he wanted to do a Matt Hardy podcast:
“This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, and I grew just a massive of The Hardy Boyz, especially Matt Hardy in particular. I just always thought he was the secret sauce of The Hardys. We saw his career reinvented so many times over the years, and I really appreciate his contributions to wrestling. He was one of my guys. So about three years ago, I had this thought in my head, what would a Matt Hardy podcast sound like? Just because I thought he had so much to offer people, and it would be different than what we’ve grown to know as these nostalgia podcasts. Everyone in pro wrestling’s got a podcast these days.”
On pitching the idea of a podcast to Matt last October:
“But about three years ago, I had that thought. Matt and I first got in contact last year, and then, once I got my new gig this year, I finally got a platform where I could feasibly put something like this together and make it happen. So, I reached out to him in the beginning of October, and a couple weeks later, I got a response from him. We had a five-minute phone call, and we were off to the races from there.”
On the first meeting with Hardy:
“I think it helped that I had a lot of time to come up with what this podcast would look like in theory. So, I had a pitch ready to go. I said, ‘Man, I just need five minutes of your time.’ And he gave me a call, and in five minutes, I pitched the whole thing to him. He said he was interested, and then, it was the Orlando Dynamite. I think it was October 23 or something like that. He and I got lunch at a Chipotle near the arena. And we had lunch for about two, two-and-a-half hours, and we just ironed out a year’s worth of potential shows and topics. And immediately, I think we both knew, ‘Alright, We got something here.’ So, that’s how everything went about, and he’s expressed his full confidence in me to help deliver this and tell his stories, and that’s just the coolest thing in the world to me.”
