Matt Hardy Created ‘Broken Matt’ To Increase His Longevity, Names His Favorite Cinematic Matches

Matt Hardy is frequently credited for bringing cinematic matches to new heights with wrestling thanks to his Final Deletion match in 2016.

Since then, and especially during the pandemic era, cinematic matches have become all the rage with WWE and AEW utilizing the concept to mostly positive reviews. 

Speaking to ET Canada’s Shakiel Mahjouri, Matt discussed his original reasoning for Broken Matt and going with a more cinematic approach. 

“My Initial mindset in doing Broken Matt Hardy in the very beginning was to look for longevity because I knew what the new kids were doing. As the style was changing in 2015, 2016, 2017, I’m like, ‘Well, I’m not 25 anymore.’ So what if I did something different, a throwback to the old days of Undertaker and Papa Shango, something a little magical and then maybe we do matches that are shot more like a movie, you know, more like a piece of cinema. And then that could conserve my body. And then I could also do a lot more cool stuff in the realm of the character. So that was my whole mindset behind doing that. And really, I want to get my brother doing it because my brother has such an addiction to doing Swanton [Bombs] and Whisper in the Winds and he wants to do everything because he’s so passionate and he feels like his fans deserve it. That he wants to give everything. And it’s like, ‘Dude, you’re getting older. They want to see Jeff Hardy, your star. You can’t beat up your body every single night.’ So that was my original mindset for even starting the whole cinematic thing in the Broken Universe. But considering it gave Taker a great match against AJ Styles, that was amazing. I love the Boneyard Match. And Sting now being in AEW and being able to do these cinematic matches where he can be the Sing of old, it feels really special and you never know what you’re going to get. I think that’s amazing. So if I did help contribute to the new era of cinematic matches, I am very proud of the fact,” he said.

Famous cinematic matches over the past year and some change have been the AEW Revolution Street Fight, the Boneyard Match, Stadium Stampede, and the Firefly Funhouse match. 

Discussing his favorite cinematic matches, both ones he has competed in and others he hadn’t, Hardy said, “The Final Deletion will always be famous because it was like the first major one. I knew when we did the first contract signing with Broken Matt Hardy and my brother Jeff Hardy, it was so polarizing and people were so split over it. But I knew we had something because so many people were locked in and then the Final Deletion, like it went viral over the course of a couple of days. That’s like a big deal. Looking back structurally, it wasn’t as good as some of the other things I was in. Probably my favourite match that I’ve ever done cinematically was the Apocalypto Tag Team Match from Total Nonstop Deletion. One of my favourite matches, I think that I’ve watched was the Undertaker-AJ Styles thing, because I know Undertaker really wanted to go out on a good note and he’d had a couple of matches where he was in the ring live, and I know it didn’t live up to his expectations and he was let down by them. So I’m so happy you got to go out on that high note with AJ Styles. “

Hardy is currently using a new take on his Big Money Matt persona, building the Matt Hardy Empire with the likes of The Butcher & The Blade and Private Party. 

You can watch the full interview with Hardy in the video above.