Impact Wresting & Anthem Release Statement On Hardy Situation; Reby Hardy Responds

The drama between Impact Wrestling and their parent company Anthem and the Hardy family rolls on. Today, Anthem’s Ed Nordholm released a detailed statement regarding the stance of Impact Wrestling and Anthem on the whole “Broken” Hardys situation.

Good afternoon,

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.

As for the e-mails in question which purport to show that WWE has no interest in the “Broken” Hardys gimmick, here they are.

Nordholm also released portions of Hardy’s contract, which you can see here. He claims that this proves that Anthem and Impact Wrestling are in the right in this situation, and the Hardys are basically have no legal leg to stand on.

Matt’s wife, Reby, immediately upon seeing this press release, took to Twitter to slap back at Impact Wrestling, Anthem, and Ed Nordholm with her side of the story.

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"

— Reby Hardy (@RebyHardy) May 23, 2017

Anthem mad because WWE didn't fall for their offensive money grab. That type of "business" is right on par with @RealJeffJarrett gold scam

— Reby Hardy (@RebyHardy) May 24, 2017

There’s plenty more on her Twitter time line about this, too, and you can check that out to get all the latest from her.

In my opinion, it’s time for both sides to kind of grow up and just move on. This is getting crazy. Go to therapy or mediation or something.

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