The battle of the rights to the “Broken” Hardys character continues to rage on as Tuesday saw the release of public statements, legal documents, and a fiery series of responses.
If you’re new to this story, there is a dispute between Matt Hardy and Anthem Wrestling (the owners of Impact Wrestling) over who owns the rights to the “Broken” characters. Currently in WWE, Matt and brother Jeff are not using the characters and even while working indie dates to fulfil pre-WWE signed contracts, the full characters weren’t used.
Anthem Wrestling president Ed Nordholm released the following:
“In response to on-going speculation concerning our position with respect to the “Broken Brilliance” creative, I am providing this detailed log of our communications on the subject and the contractual structure of our relationship with Matt Hardy with respect to intellectual property matters (which is standard to our roster and in the industry).
There has never been any argument from Impact Wrestling that the Hardy’s were key contributors to the development of the characters and story line, or that Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy executed on their roles in spectacular fashion. But the position taken by the Hardys is a massive disservice to the contributions of the rest of the creative team at Impact Wrestling, including Jeremy Borash, Dave Lagano, Matt Conway and Billy Corgan, and is totally at odds with the terms of their contracts.
The Hardys would have you believe that Anthem is somehow avoiding their lawyers to address this. This is the log of our communications with the Hardys and/or their lawyers. It is clear that we have not been avoiding them.
March 10 – EBN speaks with executives at ROH about “Broken Brilliance” being used in ROH shows. I indicated willingness to provide an arrangement that would allow the creative to be used in ROH shows and encouraged ROH to have Matt speak with me if he wanted to pursue that discussion
March 11 – EBN spoke at length with Matt by telephone about the structure of an amicable arrangement for use of the Broken Brilliance creative
March 14 – Matt sent text message to Ed Nordholm at 4:05pm:
“Tried giving you a call, it rang & went busy. I’m open to working things out amicably as we spoke about. The lawyer who represent me is interested in seeing your offer. My lawyer’s email is {redacted} which you could send the offer to for review. Thanks.”
And I responded by text at 6:41 pm
“Thank you Matt. I was supposed to be [flying] into NYC today and am a little twisted. I will pull something together with [our] lawyers and try to get it over to your lawyer tomorrow or Thursday at latest“
March 16 – At 8:25 pm I sent an update text to Matt:
“Hi Matt. My lawyer got me a draft too late to get reviewed for today. I will look at it in the morning. Sorry for the delay”
And he responded at 9:16 pm
“Ok, he’s ready for it. Thanks for the update.”
March 17 – counsel for Anthem Wrestling delivered draft proposal to counsel for Matt Hardy
March 24 – counsel for Anthem Wresting followed up with Matt Hardy counsel requesting comments on the proposal
March 27 – counsel for Matt Hardy responds that they have been away and have not reviewed the proposal but will be back “in the next few days”
After which no further communication until
April 18 – counsel for Matt Hardy leaves a voice mail message for counsel for Anthem Wrestling asking to arrange a meeting
April 20 – EBN contacts WWE by email to determine veracity of internet rumours concerning WWE interest in Broken Brilliance
April 21 — WWE respond by email that there “is no interest on our end” {redacted email exchange attached}
April 21 – counsel for Matt Hardy sends a follow up message requesting a meeting
April 27 – lawyers speak to arrange a meeting
May 16 – lawyers meet but no agreement reached
Finally, I am attaching a copy of the relevant provisions of Matt’s contract with Impact. The clause is virtually identical to the corresponding provisions of every wrestler under contract with Impact.
The facts are that we tried to accommodate the Hardys for their Ring of Honour engagements, and have tried to elicit an indication from WWE whether they have an interest in using the Broken Brilliance creative in WWE. We are not hoarding it from WWE; WWE is not interested in it.
We fully respect the decision of Matt and Jeff to return to WWE and appreciate all of their contributions to Impact Wrestling. We wish them every success.
Our focus is on the future and we will not have any further public comment on this matter.”
Matt Hardy’s wife Reby did not take the above lightly, taking to Twitter to voice her displeasure. Some select tweets below:
– Long story short: TNA tried a literal sales pitch on WWE re: #BROKEN gimmick (which isn’t legally theirs) & they said “LOLZ yeah no, thanks”
– Because it’s ALLLLLL coming out in court, honey. From the attorneys we hired back in MARCH. Where are those “logs” ?
– Should we release the phonecalls ? I kinda wanna release the phonecalls now… since we playin petty, apparently.
As you might expect, we’re not done with this story by a long shot.