Well, this explains some things.
According to PWInsider, Anthem Entertainment - owners of Impact Wrestling - have decided they will not pursue ownership of the “Broken” gimmick. After almost a year of legal wrangling and public, at times ugly, exchanges with Matt and Reby Hardy, Anthem is opting to not contest Matt’s trademarking of the concept and characters.
On the latest edition of Raw, Hardy began rolling out the act again for his new bosses at WWE. Asked about that by Sports Illustrated, Anthem exec and Impact president Ed Nordholm offered a downright gracious statement:
“We have seen the character development and will be interested to see where they take the concept. Our new talent agreements all incorporate language that allow talent to continue to use their IMPACT persona after they leave the company. We are working with our legal team to amend our existing agreements to extend this to all of our current and former talent.”
SI says there have been no new negotiations between the parties, and Anthem/Impact will not receive a slice of any revenue Matt and WWE make off the gimmick.
Why drop it now? Maybe they decided to focus on their current product and not worry about something they couldn’t replicate without having the talent associated with it under contract? Perhaps after re-branding to a name they didn’t secure rights to (Global Force) before re-labeling themselves, they revisited their whole trademark strategy?
We’ll likely never know. But these stories hitting the web were enough to get Hardy to use the “B” word on Twitter...
I am recently #WOKEN, but I will FOREVAH be #BROKEN.
— #WOKEN Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) November 29, 2017
DELIGHTFUL!