Returning To WWE Could Ruin Matt Hardy’s Career

Matt Hardy, along with his brother Jeff, have been wrestling since around 1992. That is an astonishing 25 year career, so far. They have competed for many top wrestling promotions during their time, from the World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment, Ring of Honor, Impact Wrestling and multiple independent promotions.

Yet, the brothers from North Carolina still have a lot of great wrestling ahead of them. For most of their career, Jeff has been the more popular star, due to his death defying stunts involving ladders, tables and jumps from terrifyingly high places. Matt, on the other hand, was always the better technical wrestler. He was always so close to breaking out and becoming the star we all knew he could be. It was not until only recently, people saw what Matt Hardy was truly capable of.

Around the middle of last year, the change occurred. Matt Hardy transformed from his usual self into “Broken Matt”. He began referring to his brother Jeff as “Brother Nero,” he cut promos about “deleting” Jeff. Then the Final Deletion happened; a match to determine who had the rights to the Hardy name. A match so crazy and frankly confusing it was actually quite entertaining. I will not go into detail about the match because you would need hours to fully understand the utter brilliance of it (if you haven’t seen it I suggest watching it). Long story short, Matt won and now Jeff once again teams with his brother under the name “Brother Nero.”

Since then, they have been Impact Wrestling’s Tag Team Champions, until their departure, and most recently won the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships. They couldn’t come to an agreement with Impact Wrestling’s management in terms of their contracts and decided to go their separate ways.

So, why did this new “Broken” gimmick work? Simple: Impact Wrestling gave Hardy creative control of his character. He did his own promos, and essentially created his own identity. For a while, he was the hottest thing in Pro Wrestling, and for the first time in his entire career he was more popular than his brother. With arenas full of people swiping their fingers and chanting “delete”, which, when you watch it, is very reminiscent of Daniel Bryan’s “Yes” chants.

For years the brothers have expressed interest in a return home to WWE. Jeff has stated he wants a Hell in a Cell match with the Undertaker. This would be their final run, in the place that made them stars. However, for now at least, a return to WWE would be career suicide.

Why? Because WWE management aren’t going to give Matt the same control over his character. So, upon return they could try to keep the gimmick alive and eventually drive it into the ground. Or they’d drop it completely, meaning everything Matt and Jeff have worked so hard to create will be for nothing, and he will be back to square one. Think about it, whose gimmick, already strong in the WWE, is very close to what the Hardys are doing? The Wyatt Family, who right now are on top of the WWE with Bray Wyatt set to headline Wrestlemania, which is why you can’t take the Wyatt’s gimmick away either. Wyatt is arguably the most over character in WWE today; an amazing feat, considering he is supposed to be a Heel.

Right now, Matt Hardy would be as insane as the character he portrays to return to WWE. Jeff, on the other hand, is a little easier. He could still drop his current persona and pull off his old character. While Matt could also do this, it would be killing one of the hottest angles in Professional Wrestling right now, which WWE has been known to do. Case and point, The Club. While they now hold tag team gold, it took them months of weak booking and humiliation to get to that point. They were the hottest tag team in the world and they were reduced to making clumsy testicle jokes and that “Old Day” segment. It would, beyond a doubt, ruin Matt Hardy’s career if he was to try and return in the near future.