Broken to Woken: Matt Hardy’s Ultimate Deletion is Reborn

Matt Hardy’s rivalry with Bray Wyatt will culminate tonight in the Ultimate Deletion. The content of this match has been the topic of legal conversations between Hardy and his ex-employer over the last year. With legal hurdles cleared, it’s time for Matt Hardy’s Woken Universe to truly debut in WWE.

While we’ve seen Matt Hardy perform as the character on WWE programming, we’ve yet to see an Ultimate Deletion style match. For all the talk there has been regarding how the gimmick has been presented in WWE so far, the real test will be how well regarded the segment tonight is.

It’s been less than 2 years since Matt was broken. He was starting to crumble before then, however. In light of tonight’s Ultimate Deletion, this article looks back on how Matt Hardy transformed his gimmick.

Matt Hardy at 40

When Matt Hardy arrived in TNA Wrestling in 2014, he was months away from turning 40 and had been wrestling professionally for 20 years. The company he’d signed with had fired him 3 years earlier following his arrest for driving under the influence.

TNA had fallen far since Hardy had been there previously. In 2011, Hardy joined names like Rob Van Dam and Sting as Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan gained some level of authority behind the scenes. While that period in TNA history didn’t exactly end well, at the time it seemed like the company was on the verge of becoming bigger than they were.

There was nothing in the atmosphere of 2014 which suggested Matt Hardy was on the verge of the most significant part of his career. In fact, just the opposite was the case.

In 2014, Matt and Jeff reunited the Hardys in TNA and won the tag-team championships. They were forced to give them up that summer after Jeff was involved in an ATV accident. This led Matt to go into single’s competition and eventually win the TNA World Championship. Some bizarre booking led to him losing the title without actually losing a match, however. He’d spend the rest of the year trying to win the championship back off Drew Galloway but failing.

As high up the card as Matt was at this time, TNA was struggling to find itself during this period. As it would turn out, what Matt Hardy would do the following year would begin to re-define the company, for a little while, at least.

Matt Hardy is Broken in 2016

In early 2016, Hardy turned heel after his wife, Reby Sky, helped him defeat EC3 to win the TNA World Championship. His brother Jeff didn’t approve of his heel-ish actions and the brothers turned into rivals for the first time since 2009.

On the March 15th edition of Impact Wrestling, Drew Galloway won a fatal 4-way match which also featured Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, and EC3 to win the TNA World Championship. From that moment on Matt set his sights on getting revenge on his brother. This led to an I-Quit match between the two on April 19th, 2016. The match would be ruled a no-contest after both men were too injured to continue.

The next time we saw Matt Hardy, he was speaking in a peculiar accent and was preoccupied with making his brother, whom he referred to as “Brother Nero”, obsolete.

Jeff defeated Matt in a Full Metal Mayhem match at Slammiversary that June. He defeated him again on Impact in a steel cage match. Finally, Matt challenged Jeff to a final match which would take place on the Hardy Family Compound. The match would be called “the Final Deletion” and would air on July 5th, 2016.

Reaction to the Final Deletion

The Final Deletion confirmed Matt Hardy was going all-in on this character. While the unique gimmick had its detractors, the reaction was generally positive.

The Final Deletion carried certain elements of Lucha Underground’s sci-fi universe but with a more comedic take. The viewer is asked to suspend disbelief to a larger degree, also similar to science fiction or fantasy movies. Characters are able to have supernatural abilities and are able to travel through time.

Matt’s never given a firm reason as to why, when, and where he decided to go in such a bizarre direction with his character. He’s never stated how confident he was either. This is mainly because he gives interviews in character for the most part. What we know is that Matt Hardy chose to re-invent himself after 40, when he’d been a pro over 20 years, and when many felt his best days were behind him. The result has been the most significant thing he’s ever done in his career.

The Road To Ultimate Deletion

Matt and Jeff Hardy made a triumphant returns to WWE less than a year ago at WrestleMania 33. The legendary team had reverted to the Hardy Boyz personas the WWE Universe was accustomed to from their previous run, but we’d soon get glimpses that Matt’s broken side was alive and well.

As the months passed and the Hardy’s legal battle with Impact Wrestling parents company Anthem Sports & Entertainment came to a close, it was only a matter of time before the dam broke and “Woken” Matt was unleashed. Jeff Hardy’s shoulder injury and subsequent surgery back in September paved the road for Matt to forge his own path.

As we embark on the road to the Hardy compound and the Ultimate Deletion, the true question is how much creative freedom Matt will have to execute his broken brilliance.