According to a new report from Sports Illustrated, Matt Hardy now has complete control over the “Broken Universe” gimmick. He now controls all of the trademarks associated with the gimmick, including “Broken” Matt, Brother Nero and Vanguard1. As previously reported here on eWn, Hardy met with Anthem/iMPACT! Wrestling officials at the end of January and took over ownership of the trademarks.
The only comment Anthem has made regarding the long-standing dispute and now having things resolved is, “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.”
According to the SI report, the main reason Anthem ultimately gave up and gave Hardy the rights to the “Broken Universe” trademarks was money. The company reportedly didn’t want a lengthy legal battle and were concerned that if the courts sided with Hardy, they could potentially be on the hook for usage of Senor Benjamin, King Maxel, and other characters. There was also fear that Hardy would sue Pop TV, their main cable TV network. The company simply decided to just transfer the rights to Hardy to avoid all of those potential issues. For what it’s worth, Anthem/iMPACT! Wrestling still have a “Broken Universe” DVD that can be released and added to their Global Wrestling Network. That was part of the deal with Hardy.
Also, Anthem’s Vice President, Ed Nordholm, initially listened heavily to Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett’s advice to him was at the root of this dispute early on. From this point forward, Anthem is allowing their talent to keep their intellectual property to avoid another situation like the Hardy one in the future. Initially, Jeff Jarrett didn’t believe that the “Broken Universe” gimmick would work and that led to Hardy’s iMPACT! Wrestling departure.
We previously noted here on eWn that WWE is giving Hardy a lot of freedom to build his “Woken” gimmick. As of now, there are no plans for Matt to use his “Broken” gimmick in WWE since they prefer to own their own trademarks.
