Matt Hardy never got to bring the "Broken" gimmick to WWE, though a version of it was tried.
When Matt Hardy returned to WWE at WrestleMania 33, he did so alongside his brother Jeff as the Hardy Boyz, his original extreme gimmick. In 2017, Hardy became "Woken" in a nod to the "Broken" character, though the majority of fans agreed that the two characters were similar in name only. "Woken" Matt feuded with, and eventually teamed with, Bray Wyatt before the character was dropped in 2018.
Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Hardy was asked if Vince simply didn't understand the character.
"When we did Woken Matt Hardy, Vince initiated it because people wouldn't stop chanting 'Delete.' He'd ask about it, we talked about it, and I wanted to do it," Hardy recalled. "I think there's a possibility of [Vince didn't create it, so he doesn't understand it]. But it's also a different concept. I don't think he fully understood it. He gave us an opportunity, but also giving us an opportunity, it allows him to say, 'I gave him an opportunity, but it didn't work huge' It had to be done different. When we did the first vignette and we laughed at the very end, we ended up laughing every single week and there are times where there's stuff that has to be serious and it can't be humorous. There's time where it can be dramatic or scary. You have to have all those elements to make some kind of odd-meta hack like this work. It ended up getting moved to too much of a 'laugh at each other' to really be brought in correctly by the WWE universe."
Hardy took time off at the end of 2018 and returned once again alongside Jeff as The Hardy Boyz in 2019. Hardy was used sparingly in 2019 and into 2020 before letting his WWE contract expire in March. Hardy is currently a free agent.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hardy admitted that his brand of entertainment isn't a priority for WWE. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please give a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
