After making his shocking AEW debut last week, Matt Hardy will come face-to-face with Chris Jericho on this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite. Hardy’s last run in WWE came to a disappointing end in early Match, as he was either kept off television or used as a jobber for the latter half of his contract. And all signs of his Broken persona, the thing that made him one of the hottest acts in the business in 2016, had been kept to its most basic level before being quietly fazed out. And yet in the months leading up to his AEW arrival he managed to not only trick fans into thinking he was The Dark Order’s “Exalted One” (that turned out to be Brodie Lee), but he managed to introduce a new “Broken” persona in Damascus.
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While promoting his involvement in the Chris Benoit episode of VICE’s Dark Side of the Ring Season Two, Jericho spoke highly of Hardy’s arrival in AEW by saying he is “a perfect fit” for the young company.
“It’s great to have Matt because I think Matt’s one of those guys like me that’s really done a good job of reinventing himself,” Jericho said. “And creating a whole new character at the later stages of his career, to show off that creativity that he has. Unfortunately, WWE doesn’t like it when you create your own stuff. They want to be involved in the creation every step of the way, which is all fine. But I think he’s perfect for AEW because there’s really no rules for him here other than just be creative and just be good.
“And I think when you look back when he started, the Broken Matt character in Impact, three or four years ago it was the best thing Impact ever had,” he continued. “So we’re really excited to have him as a performer, as a wrestling mind, as an idea guy, and he’s just somebody who’s creative. And once again, anybody you can get that crosses over to our side of the street, that’s still viable and still huge and still has a lot to offer. It’s just makes our company stronger and it’s a huge asset for us.”
On top of Hardy’s arrival, it was announced that he would be joining Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Hangman Page and Matt Jackson in their battle against Jericho’s Inner Circle faction in the upcoming Blood & Guts match. The bout was originally scheduled to take place this week, but was pushed back to the coronavirus pandemic.
