The Hardy Boyz Reunited With OG Manager Michael Hayes At The Gathering in Charlotte

While many would associate The Hardy Boyz and Lita, their first manager in the WWE (then the WWF) was Michael "P.S." Hayes of the Fabulous Freebirds. A longtime road agent and producer for WWE, Hayes appeared on camera as the cornerman for Matt and Jeff Hardy in the fall of 1998 to the summer of 1999, leading the brothers to their first WWF Tag Team Championship on July 5th of that year. This kicked off the rise of one of the triumvirate of tables, ladders, and chairs, leading to a revolution in American tag team wrestling smack-dab in the middle of the vaunted Attitude Era of pro wrestling.

This weekend saw The Gathering in Charlotte, NC, just two hours and change away from Cameron, NC, the Hardys' hometown, and among the guests were the original lineup, captured on photo in a reunion some twenty-seven years in the making. Matt and Jeff are the reigning TNA World Tag Team Champions for the fifth time in their careers, albeit sans manager these days, but they had plenty of time for their "rasslin' daddy," as Matt quips in a post to his X (formerly Twitter):

Jeff is set to wrestle for the TNA World Championship this coming Thursday, July 30th against champion Nic Nemeth (formerly WWE's Dolph Ziggler). The brothers won the World Tag Team titles at Slammiversary last month, upending Bear Bronson and Brian Myers of The System as part of a four-team ladder match. They still got it, indeed.

Michael Hayes is a prominent backstage figure in WWE today, as evidenced in the Netflix series WWE Unreal, whose third season premiered earlier this week. He is the Vice President of Creative Writing and Booking at time of publication.