Matt Hardy wrestled Buddy Murphy on a house show in Reno, Nevada on Monday night. Hardy defeated Murphy on the show but offered praise for the former Cruiserweight champion after.

Hardy posted the following on Twitter after having wrestled Murphy for the first time:

Got the opportunity to get in the ring with @WWE_Murphy tonight at #WWEReno for the first time ever. He’s an INCREDIBLE athlete & a @WWE superstar you should definitely keep your eye on.

— The VESSEL of Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) June 11, 2019

30-year-old Buddy Murphy was announced as being part of the Smackdown roster earlier this spring. Murphy dropped the cruiserweight title to Tony Nese at WrestleMania this year and received his main roster call-up shortly after.

Since that time, however, the only match Murphy has wrestled on WWE programming was the 50-Man Battle Royal from Super ShowDown last week. He’s wrestled 3 house show matches and 1 dark match from a Smackdown taping. Murphy lost all 4 matches. He’s dropped 2 singles matches to Ali, 1 to Aleister Black, and his latest to Matt Hardy from Monday night.

Murphy was the 9th wrestler to win the re-launched version of WWE’s Cruiserweight title. His reign was the 11th in the lineage of the championship.

Murphy defeated Cedric Alexander for the belt at last year’s Super ShowDown which was held in Melbourne, Australia. He then defended the title on 4 WWE PPVs from Survivor Series to WrestleMania. Murphy defeated Mustafa Ali at Survivor Series, Alexander at TLC, Tozawa, Itami, and Kalisto (4-way) at Royal Rumble and then Tozawa in a single’s match at Elimination Chamber. He then dropped the belt to Tony Nese at WrestleMania.