Alert Senor Benjamin and prepare Vanguard 1 for a victory flight. Matt Hardy reportedly now has sole ownership of the Broken Universe.
Sports Illustrated reported the news on Wednesday in its "Extra Mustard" column.
SI reported that the trademarks were transferred over to Hardy at the end of January.
Anthem Sports and Entertainment, which owns Impact Wrestling, released a statement on the matter:
"We don’t have anything to add to this story, but we are happy to have resolved this issue and are focused on the future,” the statement said.
SI, citing sources close to both WWE and Anthem, reported the matter was resolved "due to finances." Specifically, that Anthem resolved the issue so as to avoid a lawsuit from Hardy, which also could have involved Pop TV or have forced Anthem to pay money to characters in the Broken Universe such as Benjamin and Maxel Hardy (Hardy's toddler son) who were not compensated for their work at the time.
The legal battle over the rights to the Broken Universe began last year after the Hardys left Impact, following Anthem's acquisition of the company and a general shedding of costs and payroll that included the departures of several key talent. There were multiple back-and-forths on social media -- involving Hardy, his wife Reby, and even Anthem Executive VP Ed Nordholm.
Then in November, Impact issued a statement that it would not claim further ownership of the Broken concept, which dovetailed with an announcement that in the future talent would be able to maintain their intellectual properties and characters in Impact after leaving the company. The two sides appeared to reconcile last month, with Hardy posting a tweet that included a picture of him and Nordholm together.
Hardy, who has been "Woken" rather than "Broken" since transitioning to the character in WWE late last year, may have future videos in the same vein as The Final Deletion coming soon since Jeremy Borash, a longtime employee for TNA, Global Force, and Impact who joined WWE just recently, was instrumental in the production of those videos.
