Matt Hardy is back in TNA Wrestling - and he’s been Broken once more.

The older Hardy brother surfaced at the end of the Rebellion pay-per-view, confronting Moose via lights-out appearance following his TNA World Championship retention over Nic Nemeth. ‘Broken’ Matt laid him out with a Twist of Fate before lifting the title, signifying his intentions.

Matt Hardy had entered free agency earlier in April following the expiration of his deal with All Elite Wrestling. Signing with the Tony Khan-led group in March 2020, Hardy’s activity in the company had greatly decreased over the last four years, his most recent match having aired on January 5. Matt himself confirmed that talks had taken place with both WWE and TNA, going so far as to post the former’s QR code teases for Uncle Howdy, hinting that he may be involved; alas, he won’t be.

Why Didn’t ‘Broken’ Matt Hardy Work In AEW?

Although Matt Hardy achieved critical success in TNA with the ‘Broken’ persona to the extent that he won the Wrestling Observer’s Best Gimmick award in 2016, the character failed to get over as well elsewhere, with WWE’s fumbled ‘Woken’ ripoff playing out to near silence. According to Matt in an interview with EssentiallySports, he believes the lack of a live crowd killed the character in AEW before it could take off (H/T Wrestling Inc.):

"The Broken Matt Hardy character is a very fan-driven character. It was just very hard for it to work as it should have without fans in the venue. Obviously, the whole world was in the midst of this pandemic, so we just changed courses and I went to a more reality-based character in Big Money Matt. We took a step back from Broken Matt, and who knows? Maybe now that fans are back, you'll see Broken Matt again down the road."

The latest appearance of ‘Broken’ Matt Hardy came via the January 16, 2023 Being The Elite, as the character appeared briefly in a sketch with Ethan Page.