Matt Hardy got busted open last night at WWE Great Balls of Fire during The Hardy Boyz 30-Minute Iron Man match against RAW Tag Team Champions Cesaro & Sheamus and required stitches after the match.
Matt cracked his dome at some point near the end of the 30-minute tag team Iron Man match, but it’s unclear exactly when the incident occurred. Regardless, he required nine stitches over his eye.
Matt Hardy has been continuing his “Broken” teases online, and wrote earlier this week that they “are days away from winning.” While there were reports that Anthem Media and the Hardys are getting close to a settlement that would result in the Hardys getting the gimmick back, PWInsider reports that the word backstage at the Impact tapings this week is that “it’s actually much closer to the opposite with the two sides remaining very much at odds.”
Source: WrestlingINC
Impact Wrestling has been locked in a legal battle with Matt and Jeff Hardy for the majority of this year over the rights to the Broken Matt and Brother Nero gimmicks.
Impact’s argument is the gimmicks were created while they were working in TNA but both Hardy brothers claim they created the idea behind the gimmicks that were of their own doing. Matt Hardy’s wife, Reby, has been very vocal in her criticism towards Impact over the legal issues and even tweeted that Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions President Ed Nordholm and Jeff Jarrett are the “scum of the earth.”
What complicates matters even more is Jeff Jarrett’s personal friendship with Jeff Hardy. Jarrett recently spoke to Wrestle:List about the ongoing legal battle, where he gave his thoughts on the squabble.
“I always take the high road because there is legal squabbles or potential legal squabbles but I have said this to a couple of outlets, and I say this with very broad strokes – I am from Nashville so I am around music which is intellectual property and I have been in the business 30 years,” Jarrett told Wrestle:List. “Intellectual property laws are very simple, there are two sides to it; there are publishers and the writers, then there are the performers as well.”
“Jeff Hardy has been one of my best friends for 20 years, you can look on my social media and their social media, and we take family vacations together but business is business,” Jarrett continued. “So when it relates to IP it’s real simple, there is a publisher who owns the property, there is a writer who gets credit and can monetize it, then there is the performers. There is no question that Broken Matt and Brother Nero’s performances were off the charts good. But when it comes to ownership to me it’s almost a silly squabble, it’s never been in question. Impact are the owners.”
Impact attempted to re-sign both Matt and Jeff Hardy when their contracts expired earlier this year but negotiations were unsuccessful. The Hardys worked for Ring of Honor in March before returning to WWE together at WrestleMania 33 in April.
Source: WrestlingINC
Impact Wrestling President Ed Nordholm revealed in an interview with the LAW this week that even though he felt that it was “unquestionable” that Impact Wrestling owned the “Broken” gimmick, he received word from WWE that they weren’t interested in it anyway.
“As far as I know, the WWE doesn’t want the gimmick, and indeed, from every conversation I’ve had with them, I’ve been told they have no interest in it,” Nordholm said. When asked if WWE has been actively pursuing the gimmick from them Nordholm replied, “Oh god, no. We’ve been in communication because there’s all this chatter about how we’re keeping it from them. [Laughs] I’m taking heat because I’m keeping something from you. If you want it, why don’t you call me? And their answer to me has been, ‘No, not interested.'”
On Tuesday, Nordholm leaked an email exchange he had with a WWE employee who stated that WWE had “no interest” in getting involved with acquiring the gimmick.
Dave Meltzer reported on the most recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE is not getting involved because they don’t want to set a precedent of buying a gimmick or idea from someone else. Hardy is actively pursuing acquiring the rights to it, and Meltzer noted that if WWE was not interested in the gimmick, they would tell him to stop doing the “Broken” mannerisms that he’s been using on television. Meltzer added that it’s clear that they have interest in the gimmick if Hardy can get the rights for it, however they have no desire to get involved in the process.
Source: WrestlingINC
Matt Hardy commented on Impact Wrestling President Ed Nordholm sending PWInsider a log of the communications between the company and Hardy over the ownership of the “Broken” gimmick. Nordholm included an alleged four-page excerpt from Hardy’s contract with highlighted passages which stated that the company owned all intellectual property after their relationship ended.
Nordholm also posted an email exchange with a WWE employee who stated that WWE had “no interest” in getting involved with acquiring the gimmick.
Hardy responded on Twitter:
Source: WrestlingINC
Matt Hardy yesterday removed “#BROKEN” from his Twitter profile and added “#DELETE.” He changed it back to “#BROKEN” and wrote the following regarding patience:
Source: WrestlingINC
It appears the “Broken” gimmick for RAW Tag Team Champions The Hardys is officially done as Matt Hardy tweeted on his “CONDISHTION” being contained by the reaction they received at WrestleMania 33 on Sunday. As noted, Hardy has made brief mentions of the “Broken” gimmick on WWE TV this week. He wrote the following today:
The sheer NIRVANA of coming home to that DEAFENING ovation at #Wrestlemania seems to have contained my CONDISHTION.
If it CAN be contained.
— #BROKEN Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) April 4, 2017
Matt’s wife Reby Hardy also referred to the “Broken” gimmick being done. She wrote the following and also told a fan to tell WWE if they wanted to see the gimmick return. She wrote:
@michaelteholis2 don’t tell me, tell WWE
— Reby Hardy (@RebyHardy) April 4, 2017
What is #BROKEN can never be truly “fixed”. Adding GOLD never hurts tho… pic.twitter.com/YB82SUxgj1
— Reby Hardy (@RebyHardy) April 4, 2017
On a related note, Reby continues to take shots at Impact Wrestling and their parent company on social media. She tweeted the following last night after a “f–k that owl” chant broke out during the post-WrestleMania 33 RAW:
I like it here already ?? #RAWaftermania #f–kthatowl
— Reby Hardy (@RebyHardy) April 4, 2017
Source: WrestlingINC
As noted, the Hardys are expected to be signing with WWE imminently. They dropped the ROH Tag Team Championship to the Young Bucks at last night’s ROH Supercard Of Honor XI event. After the match, Jeff Hardy said that there’s only one thing left to do, singing that they’ll “fade away and classify ourselves as obsolete” from ROH.
The Hardys are holding a Broken Tailgate party today in Orlando about 1.6 miles from Camping World Stadium, the site of tonight’s WrestleMania 33 event. A Twitter user posted the video below of a WWE vehicle in front of the party. The party is scheduled to go until 6pm ET, an hour before the WrestleMania 33 main card begins.
A @WWE official vehicle has pulled up in front of the Hardys #BrokenTailgate party ?? pic.twitter.com/hjg80SMDr5
— ??BrokenJoeyBanks?? (@MrJoeyDiodati) April 2, 2017
Below is video of the Hardys arriving for the event this morning:
The Hardys have Arrived! Here at the Hardy #BrokenTailgate party @MATTHARDYBRAND@JEFFHARDYBRAND @RebyHardy pic.twitter.com/N4slU1dGuU
— ??BrokenJoeyBanks?? (@MrJoeyDiodati) April 2, 2017
Source: WrestlingINC
Chuck Carroll of CBS Local Sports interviewed Jeff Hardy, who said that the Hardys are planning to stay with Ring of Honor through the summer and aren’t going to WWE right now. Hardy said that they will continue testing the waters at ROH and see how it goes after that. He said he also plans to approach them about performing concerts at some of their shows with his band’s new album coming out in a couple of months.
You can check out the interview at this link or in the video above, they sent us these highlights:
When we talked in December everything seemed so certain that you were going to re-sign with Impact. The Broken gimmick was working so well. What actually happened? There are a lot of rumors out there.
“It’s pretty simple. When we last spoke, Billy Corgan who is a good friend of myself and Matt, he was out at my property when we were filming Delete or Decay. He was going to own the company, be the president and all that good stuff. Basically, if he owned the company right now I’d still be under contract. But so many changes happened. When they bought him out or had a falling out with this other company and then another company, Anthem, came in. This other company leaves that I was negotiating with.
“And so, wow we don’t have a deal or anything. It was a fresh start with this Anthem crew. Things were just too uncertain and it was just weird. I just thought that I had to make things different for my career. Right now the time is right. There were signs, I believe, from a higher power. Bottom line if Billy was still there I’d still be there. But the way that all went down I was just ready to move on.”
One of the things that had been reported was that they were really slow in getting you guys the contracts and then pretty much gave you an ultimatum to sign them or get out. Is there any truth to the abruptness of how it all went down?
“Yeah, for sure. I was good to go with mine, but then Matt had some issues going on. So, time just moved on slowly. … Long story short, we couldn’t come to an agreement. They were very late. We offered to come drop the titles at the TV tapings in March and they said we couldn’t do that unless we were under contract. And I was like, “That’s so silly. Oh my God, this is pro wrestling anything is possible. Let’s do the right thing and come drop them to another team.” But that wasn’t good enough so we basically vacated them and never lost them.
“I wish them all the best. Seven years, I had a good time there. They were great to me and helped me through tough times. But it was just time to move on. So, yeah, very late contract negotiations.”
We’re at a point now where there has been some public back and forth by both sides. Are you surprised at the way they’re trying to protect the Broken gimmick? That has to be a little disappointing given that you did invest seven years with the company.
“It’s heartbreaking. I’m so passionate about any character I portray whether it’s Willow, the Anti-Christ, the Charismatic Enigma, Itchweed… I’m so passionate about that. Nero is my legit middle name. Me not being able to be called Brother Nero is very offensive and heartbreaking. The highest rated show last year was The Final Deletion and that’s a fact. The majority vote wins and people dug that. And then they kind of (pooped) on it. That’s not cool.
“And now with this lawsuit, we did this Ring of Honor pay-per-view out in Las Vegas and we got these cease and desist letters. I couldn’t believe it. In the print it said TNA developed these characters specifically for Matt and Jeff Hardy and that is so untrue. Matt developed himself and Brother Nero started to flow. I developed Brother Nero with the eyes and how I act. It’s all ours and it is very sad and disappointing. It’s almost surreal like, ‘Is this really happening?'”
Rumor has it that WWE has presented you guys with contracts. Is there any truth to that?
“No, because you have to go through so much testing and all of that. It’s a long process. But, no. We know some people there and naturally after WrestleMania dies down, maybe a couple of months from now, we’ll see what’s possible. But there is no truth to that whatsoever.”
[Tonight] some friends of yours, the Rock ‘n Roll Express are going into the WWE Hall of Fame. You have to be pretty excited about that.
“For sure. They were part of the Apocolypto deal. We had a little match with them. I still want to have a decent match with them. I love them to death. They’re the best. Hopefully I don’t know where or with what promotion, but we’ll have that dream match. But full congrats to them because they deserve it.”
Your band PEROXWHY?GEN just finished recording. You now have a live show under your belt. Does that mean we could see you guys out on tour?
“Yeah, hopefully so. As a matter of fact I’ll probably mention something to Ring of Honor this weekend about playing at a live gig at one of the shows. I’ve always wanted to mix the music with the wrestling. So hopefully that will come true eventually. And definitely I hope to play many more shows throughout the year. I was actually so close to playing two dates on the Warped Tour this summer. They offered through my guitar player and that’s huge. That’s like being in there with the major leaguers. I was like so scared because I didn’t know if we could do it. That needs to be the full band with the heavy songs and all that. It was just too soon. So hopefully summer of 2018 we’ll be able to jump on that. Evidently a Jeff Hardy fan was in the system there and said it would be great to have you on. I don’t think we were ready this year, but hopefully next year we’ll have a few dates on the Warped Tour which is going to be breathtaking.”
You just mentioned talking to Ring of Honor about doing a live performance at one of their shows. Have you guys re-signed there? Are you going to re-sign? What I was told was that you were signed for the “immediate future.” That sounds like a short-term deal, but you tell me. How long are you going to be sticking around there?
“It’s short-term. It’s through the summer. What’s cool about Ring of Honor is that we can still go out and work the indie dates. That’s another thing about the TNA deal was that they wanted to take our indy dates from us and I really enjoy working the independent circuit. You meet some crazy, cool, interesting people and the shows have been so great as of late. I would say our Ring of Honor deals are through the summer. It’s a short-term deal and we’ll see how things go. We’ll test the waters for a while and hopefully help the company grow.”
So Saturday isn’t going to the be the last time we see you guys in a Ring of Honor ring?
“Oh, no. No, there’s going to be many more shows. Many more honorable shows.”
When we last talked you just put out your solo debut EP, “Spawn of Me,” and now you’ve done a live performance and did some live tracks. How’d that show go?
“It was awesome. I went out to Nashville Thursday evening and rehearsed all day Friday. Then I did a wrestling show in Clarksville and stayed in the ring to do in-ring pics with a huge line. Then I changed and went straight to the bar and did 11 or 12 songs. And my voice was gone. Even during the meet-and-greet it was so embarrassing. I was so afraid because my voice was horrible. Luckily somehow I got through it. It wasn’t bad. It could have been worse. It was so natural and it gave me such confidence that I can’t wait to do it again. It was a blast. The charisma was there. It was a great experience for me and gave me hope for the future.”
You said you’re going to be better on the next show. So, what were your takeaways from this?
“Not to blow my voice out the day before the show. I mean, we sounded good in rehearsal but man my voice was gone that Saturday morning and I was freaking out. Oh my gosh, but I got through it. And then I was sick with allergies and weird weather. It took about eight days for my voice to come back. I was freaking out like, “My God I’m never going to sing again. I’m going need to get that surgery that all these professionals get.” But it’s back now. I just won’t rehearse as hard next time. Now I know how easy it is to wreck your voice.”
Source: WrestlingINC
It was noted in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy are returning to WWE soon. No word yet on exactly, but it was noted that the only question is regarding the legal issues over the gimmick and where it stands. There’s been a lot of speculation on The Hardys appearing at WrestleMania 33 on Sunday, perhaps to challenge SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos as they do not have a match. We do know that they will be in Orlando on Sunday as they are hosting a tailgate party near Camping World Stadium earlier in the day. The Observer adds that Matt and Jeff can legally debut whenever WWE wants them to.
Matt tweeted the following photo today, which added to the WrestleMania speculation:
Source: WrestlingINC
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