Ever since the Hardy Boyz came back to WWE at WrestleMania 33, the big question has been, “Will they be the Broken Hardys again? Ever?” Matt and Jeff are, of course, embroiled in a legal dispute with Impact Wrestling over the rights to the characters, and although Matt has been dropping little soupçons of Broken-ness here and there, they’ve pretty much been the classic “Team Xtreme Hardys” since their return.
On television, anyway. On Twitter, Matt has been doing four-dimensional gimmick work, changing his Twitter display name back and forth from Matt Hardy to V1 Matt Hardy to Broken Matt on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. He initially claimed that completing the Expedition for Gold by winning the Raw tag titles cured his CONDEESHUN, but lately he’s been saying there are many personae in conflict within his VESSEL.
And on Monday’s Raw, Matt gave an almost entirely straight promo, but slipped Broken-ness into it, if you knew where to look.
But fear not! It sounds like we won’t be stuck with the Team Xtreme Hardys forever. According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE has a definite plan to use the “Broken Hardys” gimmick … and they’re even working out a deal with Impact’s parent company in order to do so.
“So here’s the deal with that: The plan is to do the Broken character. And they’re doing this right now. The delay is, they’ve got to work out the deal, and the deal’s not worked out.
“They’re going to have to [pay Impact Wrestling for the rights to the gimmick]. The plan is to do the gimmick, and they’ve got to make a deal with Anthem [in order to do that]. Whatever deal they make, whether it’s a percentage deal, whether it’s a buyout of the rights … it’s whatever deal they make. They haven’t worked out the deal yet. But the goal is to work out a deal. If it never happens, it means that they never worked out the deal.
“In the interview [on Raw], he was like 85 percent old Matt Hardy, but he did slip in the accent a little bit. And you can do the accent, and they’re doing little hints of it at the house shows with it, too. They’re going to be doing teases of it until they do it, but right now it’s all up to the negotiators, as far as this gimmick.
“But the idea is very much not to do the old-time [Team Xtreme] Hardys thing, because that … and you can even see it [on Raw]. [ … ] They’re still the Hardys, they’re still going to be strong and all that [ … ] but for longevity — and not just for longevity, but for merchandising, which is the whole key to that gimmick, anyway — going to the new gimmick is the way to go.”
And the idea, according to Big Meltz, is that they’ll transition slowly into the #BROKEN characters via storyline. It won’t be like flipping a switch once the deal is made. Which is what we’d want, anyway!
So prepare to get excited, everyone. It sounds like very soon, we may be seeing Brother Nero, maybe King Maxel … the whole gang! I couldn’t be more pumped for the WWE reboot of the Broken Hardys, because it has the potential to be the greatest thing EVAH.
