Matt Hardy Reflects On How Final Deletion Won Over Initial Critics

Matt Hardy launched the Broken Universe with the Final Deletion in TNA, and he recently reflected on the polarizing response the match initially received. The first “Final Deletion” took place back in 2016. The Final Deletion took place on July 5th, 2016 and saw “Broken” Matt defeat Jeff Hardy. The cinematic match, with the Hardy’s self-funded despite taking place under the TNA banner, earned a divisive reaction from fans as a whole.

Whatever people thought of it at the time, the match proved to be deeply influential as it launched Hardy’s whole Broken Universe and helped usher in the era of cinematic matches. Matt looked back on the match in his and Jeff’s appearance on the Battleground Podcast, noting that while some people hated it at first it ultimately won people over. You can see the highlights below:

On the Reaction To the Final Deletion:

“After we shot the contract signing for the Final Deletion and it was done in a cinematic way, there was such a polarizing response to the things we did. Like, there were a lot of a lot of fans who were just going, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing. I love this character development of Matt Hardy as Broken Matt. It reminds me of the Papa Shango days or the original Undertaker, where it was magic and larger than life characters where they’re almost like superheroes or super villains.’ And there were other people that said like, ‘Oh my god, what are the Hardys doing? They’re going to ruin their legacy. This is awful, this is the worst stuff I’ve ever seen,’ whatever it may be. But everybody had an opinion on it. So, I was like, ‘Wow, if everyone cares that much about it, that means they are emotionally connected to it to some degree and they’re going to watch.’

“And then once we did the Final Deletion, there were some people that thought it was great. There were some people that didn’t understand it. There were some people that just thought it was weird, whatever. But then as people continued to follow Broken Matt Hardy and the story we were telling, and they started catching on to our story beats — then they look back at it. And now people who say that they hated it originally go, ‘It was genius.’ Because we had a good idea of what we’re doing, we knew what we were doing. And we knew what we wanted to accomplish, and we just uh we stayed the course and we did not listen to the internet. We didn’t listen to the people online.

On His Advice For Other Wrestlers:

“And that’s something that is so important that I can’t stress enough to current wrestlers. If you read the internet — I say this about social media all the time. The best thing about social media, it gives everyone a voice. The worst thing about social media, it gives everyone a voice. And the thing you have to remember is that that feedback doesn’t reflect reality always.

“But like, we stayed the course, we continued to do what we’re doing. And as I said earlier, the Broken Universe, it totally reinvigorated our entire career, and it’s ultimately what led us back to WWE for that run in 2017 through 2020.”