Billy Corgan has had his own legal battles with Anthem Entertainment stemming from his work & investment with TNA under the ownership of Dixie Carter, from whom Anthem bought the promotion last year. Those issues have been resolved, and Corgan says he has a good relationship with the new Impact Wrestling at this point.
During his time as President of TNA, he worked closely with Matt & Jeff Hardy - including on the “Broken Brilliance” creative currently being fought over by Anthem and the Hardys. Jeff has said in the past if Corgan had secured ownership of Impact, the brothers might still be there instead of in WWE.
So it’s not too surprising to hear that Corgan has been working to try and broker a deal between Anthem and the Hardys on the ownership of the “Broken” gimmick.
As he told Mike Johnson in an exclusive PWInsider interview:
I was approached by Anthem kind of to help mediate this situation and Matt & Jeff signed off on me sort of negotiating on their behalf. So I’ve been sort of the back channel negotiator for the past week or so trying to resolve this situation, and I think though it’s not where anybody wants it to be, I think it’s a little bit more clarified.
From there, Billy breaks down both sides of the argument, more or less backing up what we as fans have figured out: Anthem has contracts saying they own intellectual property created by people they are paying. The Hardys argue concessions they made under the old ownership (not being paid on time, using their property and family members in material produced for Impact without them being under contract or compensated for their work, etc) represent special circumstances. Anthem is hesitant to set a precedent whereby other talent could take characters to other companies. The Hardys point out this has already happened with someone like Bully Ray.
While Corgan hopes he’s helped the situation, as the public exchanges between current Impact President Ed Nordholm and the Hardy camp yesterday (May 23) demonstrate, it doesn’t appear he’s brought it to resolution. And he tells Johnson he’s probably done all he can:
I don’t have much of a role to play. It’s going to go more of a legal route at this point, which is unfortunate.
His reasons for believing the legal route is “unfortunate” are, for Anthem, more public relations related, as he thinks the battle is a “cloud” hanging over their product. For Matt & Jeff, it’s a little more cut and dry...
Anthem does not ever have to release this gimmick... and the Hardys would never be able to use the gimmick in WWE.
Check out the whole interview here, and stay tuned for more on this - because you know there will be.