WWE Hall Of Famer On “Broken” Matt Hardy – “I Don’t Understand It”
Matt Hardy created a “Broken” version of himself during his time in Impact Wrestling, but when he looked to recreate the character in WWE, one Hall of Famer didn’t “understand it”.
In 2017, Matt Hardy made a surprise return to WWE alongside his brother Jeff, entering, and winning, the ladder match for the Raw Tag Team Championship.
Over the coming months, fans would constantly chant “delete” when Hardy wrestled, referencing his Impact character that came to life in 2016.
But despite fan interest, Hardy was unable to tap into his creation due to an ongoing legal battle over ownership of its trademarks with his former employer.
In January 2018, Hardy legally acquired ownership of all trademarks refereeing to his “Broken” creation and started to bring elements into his feud with Bray Wyatt.
However, despite making a success of “Broken” Matt Hardy in Impact and across multiple independent companies, a Hall of Famer in WWE creative did not understand the character.
Road Dogg was working as a writer for WWE at the time, and has shared how he “never got” the character.
On his Oh You Didn’t Know podcast, Road Dogg discussed his struggles with not knowing what to do with Hardy and Wyatt, and how the writing team felt the pair could create a “cool entity”.
“I didn’t get the Broken character. I never got it. I don’t understand it. If there’s something to understand, I would love to know what that is, but he just changed and talked differently. I don’t know. I didn’t see the transformation or follow it. I never got it. That was not me writing that. We put him with Bray because we thought together they could really be this cool entity, but I will say, no, we didn’t know what to do with them.
The part I’m going to unpack is, what were their characters? If you could describe them to me, if you could give me an elevator pitch, a summary of their characters, then maybe we could have written them in that direction or something.
I’ll take the heat and I always will for a failed opportunity, an opportunity I missed as a writer or a creative guy on the show. I’ll always take the hit for that. We let them be their creative selves and their creative selves, and this is horrible, and I don’t mean to say it like this, but I don’t think they knew at that time what they were trying to do. I don’t think they knew, I don’t think we knew, and together, it made a who knew stew, and so it turned out as such. I will take some heat for that, no two ways about it. I just don’t know if anybody else who should, will.”
Road Dogg has recently shared some of his favourite WWE storylines that he worked on during his time as a WWE producer and writer.
Matt Hardy is currently working in AEW and is excited by news that the company is set to make their debut in England, with All In taking place inside Wembley Stadium later this year.
Hardy feels that the passionate UK fans will ensure a large crowd will be in attendance as AEW look to test their global appeal.
H/t to Wrestlingnews.co