Matt Hardy seemed to signal his departure from WWE earlier this month, but has since appeared on Raw again to be beaten up by Randy Orton. Though Hardy has been expressing his frustration with the creative aspect of his WWE work and appeared to be getting ready to leave the company when his contract is up in March for a while now, WWE is reportedly working hard to try and get him to stay.
According to Mike Johnson of PW Insider on the PW Insider Elite podcast, WWE has “made a lot of overtures to [Hardy] in the last couple of weeks,” including a position in the NXT system. It’s unknown whether this would be as a performer, in a behind-the-scenes role, or both, but WWE’s offer is supposed to be a very good one.
If the rumors are true that Matt Hardy is going to be revealed as the Exalted One, the mysterious leader of Dark Order, then him going to NXT instead of AEW would throw off that Dynamite storyline, which was already altered when the original planned Dark Order leader, Marty Scurll, re-signed with Ring of Honor rather than going All Elite. However, AEW has also made Dark Order posts that include Lance Archer‘s catchphrase (“Everbody dies“) recently, so Hardy may not be the secret TNT cult leader after all.
