Jeff Jarrett On “Silly Squabble” Over Hardys’ Broken Gimmick: “Impact Are The Owners”

Sometimes when I write news articles for the website, I get in trouble, because I can't seem to keep my opinions to myself.

So I've decided when handling these stories, I'm gonna throw out a little disclaimer which protects everyone involved.

Because for real, I'm tired of not seeing Broken Matt Hardy and Brother Nero on Monday nights, and I blame Jeff Jarrett.

So here we go: here's some quotes from Double J, and some opinons from me.

Hang on everyone, we're headed

OFF-TRACK with A-TRAIN

I'll try to keep things as "newsy" as possible, okay?

In the great debate over who should retain ownership over the insanely popular–and oftentimes just plain INSANE–"Broken" gimmick used by Matt Hardy and his brother Jeff during his final year with TNA Impact Wrestling, there have always been two schools of thought:

1. The gimmick, the characters, the VOCABULARY were all the brain children of Matt Hardy, much of the footage used for the "Broken" segments was filmed and financed by Matt Hardy, and certain people who were involved with the filming of said segments were never compensated. Thus, Matt Hardy owns the gimmick. Also because Common Sense.

2. Because Matt Hardy was in the employ of TNA Impact Wrestling at the time, any and all intellectual properties derived from said employee automatically belong to the employing company. Once Matt Hardy left the company, he transferred ownership to IMPACT Wrestling. Also, because we said so. Neener Neener Neener.

Guess which school of thought IMPACT Executive Producer Jeff Jarrett subscribes to.

Here's a hint: It's not the first one.

Jarrett, while speaking with Wrestle:List about IMPACT's upcoming 15th edition of Slammiversary on July 2nd, touched on the legal battle between the Hardys and Anthem Sports & Entertainment, parent company of Impact Wrestling:

“I always take the high road because there is legal squabbles or potential legal squabbles but I have said this to a couple of outlets, and I say this with very broad strokes – I am from Nashville so I am around music which is intellectual property and I have been in the business 30 years. Intellectual property laws are very simple, there are two sides to it; there are publishers and the writers, then there are the performers as well.”

Right. No argument there. Except that while TNA might have been the "publishers" of the Broken Gimmick, I don't think there's any argument against the fact that Matt Hardy was the "writer." And obviously the "performer" as well.

Jarrett continued, making sure everyone knows that he only really blames one of the Hardys for the unpleasantness surrounding the situation.

“Jeff Hardy has been one of my best friends for 20 years, you can look on my social media and their social media, and we take family vacations together but business is business. So when it relates to IP it’s real simple, there is a publisher who owns the property, there is a writer who gets credit and can monetize it, then there is the performers. There is no question that Broken Matt and Brother Nero’s performances were off the charts good. But when it comes to ownership to me it’s almost a silly squabble, it’s never been in question. Impact are the owners.”

And there you have it. Cut and dried. No room for argument. We're done here.

Except I have a feeling we're not.

Be on the lookout for an article about Reby Hardy's Twitter rampage once she hears about this.