Matt Hardy is no longer under contract with WWE, and he’s already working an angle with the Young Bucks. But he did not appear on AEW’s episode of Dynamite this week (Mar. 4), and just a couple days ago there were still rumors that the door was not closed on a WWE return. In other words, there is still some uncertainty regarding the immediate future of Matt Hardy in pro wrestling.
It looked like that was about to change, thanks to confusion over the status of Hardy’s upcoming convention booking this weekend.
Dave Meltzer spoke on Wrestling Observer Radio about Hardy’s convention booking being canceled, presumably because it’s known that he will be joining AEW.
There is an event, I think it’s called The Big Event, and it’s a convention in New York on Saturday. Matt Hardy was booked on the convention. Some WWE guys were booked as well. The convention guys were basically told you cannot book anyone from AEW. That’s one of the rules now. If you book a WWE guy anywhere, you know a baseball game, autograph signing, convention, Wizard World, that nobody from AEW is allowed. That’s just their rule. So the agreement was nobody from AEW is allowed. Matt Hardy was booked because he was booked a long time ago, because he was a WWE guy. Well now his contract is up.
Everyone knew he was going to AEW. But if he didn’t show up on Wednesday, and he wasn’t already in AEW, maybe they’d let it go.
Then I found out that Terry Funk is replacing him on that convention, so I guess they must have pushed the idea that even if he’s not on TV, he’s an AEW guy, and he can’t come. As far as I know he’s not going to that thing on Saturday, which was supposed to be his first appearance outside of WWE. I don’t know which week he’s coming in, but obviously it’s pretty imminent.
This isn’t the end of the story, however. Matt Hardy cleared up the confusion by tweeting the following an hour ago:
This Saturday in NYC, I’ll be making my very first public appearance as a free agent at The Big Event. Come out & have a WONDERFUL time!
— The UNKILLABLE Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) March 5, 2020
All of the needed info is at https://t.co/SumbrbBRyJ pic.twitter.com/fDrdWEHnNH
WrestlingInc offers more details and says the convention vendor confirmed that Hardy will be there, and that Terry Funk was booked for the convention the entire time.
Undertaker and Braun Strowman are also scheduled for this event, so by WWE’s alleged rules, no AEW talent will be allowed there. But now it looks like Matt Hardy will also be there, which means he’s still not an AEW talent.
So this was all much ado about nothing, I think. But my heard hurts nonetheless.