Matt Hardy’s recent online antics, apparently a call for his release from WWE, have been a focal point of wrestling media reports for the past few weeks.
His eccentric behavior has also stirred some internal WWE conversation, with different members of the leading wrestling promotion reacting quite distinctly to the wrestler’s personal presentation online. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter breaks down some of the backstage reactions.
As would be expected, the predominant backstage sentiment is anger at Hardy, feeling he has embarrassed the company and absolutely should be fired. Others, however, believe that because he is clearly in “work mode” trying to get fired, WWE should not so hastily cave into his ‘requests’ and release him from the company.
A third school of thought, albeit a minority one, is that Hardy is doing a successful job of entertaining and keeping himself relevant and thus deserves some degree of credit for his antics.
Regardless of how the situation shakes out, few are legitimately worried about the prospect of Matt Hardy signing with TNA Wrestling from a competitive standpoint. Even if he were to reform The Hardy Boyz with his brother Jeff, the feeling is that TNA has dropped the ball so badly on key opportunities that no real threat would emerge.
What does concern WWE, however, is the possibility that Matt Hardy joining TNA would persuade Jeff to also remain with the company. WWE still believes Jeff Hardy can be a valuable main event player, and it would like to handle the Matt situation in a way that keeps the door open for a Jeff Hardy return.