This past Monday on Raw, WWE seemed to go further than ever with setting up the “Broken” Matt Hardy gimmick.
Impact/Anthem head Ed Nordholm, who had been involved in an ugly battle with the Hardys over the rights to the gimmick throughout this year, was asked by Sports Illustrated about WWE appearing to do the gimmick on Monday and had this to say:
“We have seen the character development and will be interested to see where they take the concept. Our new talent agreements all incorporate language that allow talent to continue to use their IMPACT persona after they leave the company. We are working with our legal team to amend our existing agreements to extend this to all of our current and former talent.”
According to PWInsider, the word is that Anthem has decided internally to not pursue ownership of the gimmick or anything in the “Broken Universe,” which would mean that Matt Hardy will likely finally take control over the characters.
Anthem’s statement appears to say that they will allow the Hardys to use the gimmick, but it’s unclear if there are any caveats like expecting to be paid royalties or something like that.
Either way, WWE appears to finally be going forward with the gimmick, but it remains to be seen if it still has any steam left or if the WWE version, whatever it may be, will not be really shitty.