When Matt Hardy made his return to the WWE at "WrestleMania 33" with his brother Jeff Hardy and immediately won the WWE world tag team titles, many longtime fans wondered if he was bringing his Broken Matt gimmick with him. Sadly, that never happened because Impact Wrestling claims they have ownership of the gimmick and won't let it go without someone paying them for it first.
Matt Hardy has been in a legal battle with Impact Wrestling since then and recently Impact President Ed Nordholm sent a lot of information to wrestling websites including copies of part of the Matt Hardy contract to prove that they own the rights to Broken Matt.
The released Matt Hardy contract info
Ed Nordholm seemed to get triggered by the number of complaints Matt Hardy and his wife Reby Sky had been making on social media. As a result, Nordholm sent a huge list of communications between him and Matt as well as an alleged four-page excerpt from the Matt Hardy contract. The section he sent said that Impact Wrestling owned all gimmicks created under their banner.
Matt Hardy was angry when this happened and said that he wanted to move on and keep the contract private, but now he won't sit still and remain quiet. It sounds like releasing these contracts will cause the battles between Impact Wrestling and Matt to get even more personal.
Superstars speak out against Impact Wrestling
The release of the contract information did not go over well with some former TNA Impact Wrestling superstars. Taz, who worked as a commentator in TNA, said that releasing private contract information in an online forum will make many wrestlers in the future think twice about signing with the company because they know they can't trust them.
Taz believes that this was a very bad move on the company's part.
Eric Bischoff, who at one time was the lead booker for Impact Wrestling, said that the company is playing "small ball" and that sending contract information to wrestling websites makes Ed Nordholm a "mark" for the company.
The gray area of the Broken Matt gimmick
This is not new. When Scott Hall left the WWE and joined WCW, the WWE had its lawyers send cease and desist letters to WCW to make him stop using the Razor Ramon catchphrases. Scott kept his persona but toned it down somewhat to make it allowable. Matt Hardy could do the same in the WWE without going full Broken Matt but keeping the same idea.
There is another problem. When portraying the gimmick in Impact Wrestling, Reby Sky's father portrayed Senior Benjamin. He recently posted a photo of himself with the WWE tag team title and shortly after that, Reby made it sound like Impact did something new. The problem here is that her dad never signed a contract and was never a paid contractor for Impact.
The company possibly has no claims to ownership over anything he did as he did not work for the company.
Matt Hady also paid for a large number of the events from the gimmick, which also might come into play in court battles, if it makes it that far.
