Matt Hardy Says ‘Broken’ World Title Run Was Considered
AEW star Matt Hardy says talks once took place over his “Broken” character receiving a world title had he stayed in IMPACT Wrestling.
In 2016 Matt Hardy and his brother Jeff changed the course of wrestling history when the elder Hardy brother embraced his “broken brilliance” and the two men competed in the cinematic Final Deletion. The match paved the way for later cinematic matches in AEW and WWE, which rose to prominence during the pandemic.
The Hardys left IMPACT Wrestling under something of a cloud before they eventually returned to WWE in 2017 at WrestleMania 33.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, the AEW star discussed what his life in IMPACT could have been like if he had chosen to stay, noting that he’d have been more heavily involved in the company’s creative direction:
“I wasn’t going to be like, technically, the ‘head’ of creative. I was going to have a much more impactful role when it came to creative. I was going to have a much bigger say. I was gonna have a lot more input into what was going on. If we would have continued the path that we were doing some of the stuff we were talking about doing with Broken Matt, whenever we eventually decided who we would have dropped the TNA Tag Team Titles to — we left with the titles, in theory.”
“If we would have stayed, if we would re-signed with TNA and if we would have finally chosen a team we would have dropped the titles to them, whoever it may have been, there was a point where they were already talking about me maybe even having another run with the World Title and doing it as “Broken” Matt.”
Hardy then noted then that an IMPACT World Title run for ‘Broken’ Matt was discussed, something Hardy noted that needed to be brief but he had marked out one man he’d have been happy to lose the title to when the time came:
“If I would have ended up winning the World Title, which was talked about, I said, ‘I don’t think I should have it long. I don’t think ‘Broken’ Matt is a character that really needs titles. I don’t think it does a lot.’ The guy who I was saying then was getting really hot and who I wanted to try and make sure — like, ‘If I win the title, let’s make it a big deal. Do a couple of Hardy compound things and then three or four weeks later, I need to drop it.’ I wanted to drop it to Eli Drake.”