I'll do it! Matt Hardy's "Woken" Character Sucks Because It Had No Build

[Hard Hit Prince]

I was a fan of "Broken" Matt Hardy and all his "broken brilliance" in his "broken dream". I was a fan of the delete chants. I loved it when he said stuff really weird like MkMeeeeehn or Brother Nero with the clap of the teeth. It worked in Impact Wrestling and the company was all for it and the fans were all for it, so much so, that when the Hardy Boyz returned, there was only one way people wanted them – the "broken" kind of way.

It didn't happen. I was bummed, I admit. The story had such a strong backstory in it and a real underrated feud between Matt and Jeff Hardy to help build it up. It was crazy and sometimes non-sense, but it worked really well, given the number of times we've already seen them fight. He also had like secondary characters to give it life. He had his baby son with him and a crazy Reby Sky to keep it more flawless. The whole shtick worked with the "Obsolete" entrance and the crazy shows in the Hardy's Compound.

Now come 2018, Matt Hardy is finally the "broken" character in WWE. Why? He lost a lot of matches. That's fucking it. He's now crazy, because he lost matches. He wants to feud with Bray Wyatt to "Delete" him, because Bray Wyatt exists? Who writes that crap? Am I supposed to be weirded out about the two characters? I am not and it's not working for me.

I hate the vignettes and I think WWE is not doing the character justice. It also doesn't help that it's being used in a feud against the "Eater of All Relevancy" Bray Wyatt.

Is anyone honestly thinking that the feud is good and has already reasons to see them fight? Please, sell me the match and discuss why Matt Hardy's "Woken" character is any good or bad.

 

[Khalifa]

You make a good point in what was the reason for him being Woken. The seeds could’ve been planted after The Bar feud but obviously WWE couldn’t of done it then. Is the feud with Bray exciting? If it was when Bray was winning matches then yeah, but since Bray has been booked into the ground it’s hard to like. I’ve got a hope Bray joins the stable of the Woken universe. Bray needs to be woken himself. So I’ve got a little hope this feud can turn interesting but I’m not expecting much.

I think after this feud is where it’ll pick up. This is what the fans have wanted. Sure it’s late but it’s better than plain Matt hey? It’ll pick up a lot when Jeff gets back as well because while the Broken gimmick is awesome, Jeff is the one who makes the matches watchable. Come after Wrestlemania time I bet we say it’s the best thing on Raw.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

The issue, in my opinion, is that like most WWE ideas in recent memory, it was rushed.

Even after they dropped the tag titles and were stuck in limbo, the Hardy's were still very over. Jeff getting hurt forced them to try to scramble to find something for Matt. You can't just put a guy that over on the shelf. They tried him teaming with Jordan, they had him in a couple solid matches against Miz, but nothing seemed permanent. It was around that time that Anthem made the call to allow their former talent to use their Impact gimmicks. Instead of trying to plant a bunch of seeds, WWE just had Matt lose a couple matches and go crazy and then he was Woken, since Vince doesn't like to use ideas he doesn't own.

The crazy thing is that when Matt was Broken in TNA, people wanted to see him face Wyatt. It seemed like a cool feud, and if they hadn't rushed it then it could have been cool. Instead he just changes to being Woken and decides to delete Bray for....reasons???? They never really explained it. They just rushed it for the sake of getting something that had people talking on TV.

 

[Da Prophet]

Bray Wyatt is legit the worst character. He has nothing of substance to offer ever since he ended his feud with John Cena and that was four years ago. That was his best work and Wyatt has never come close. You need two people to make a feud interesting and Matt Hardy is stuck with the guy who hasn't been exciting for four years.

Hardy's work is very meh at the moment but I attribute nearly all of it to Wyatt being a pit of destruction for anything remotely exciting. Matt needs someone to work off, that's why the segments with his wife or Jeff are so great. You need Matt being crazy and then the calm character that plays it straight. Right now, Matt is crazy and Wyatt is wacky. Those types of feuds rarely work unless you have top talent.

This feud and the Woken Matt character are boring because of the guy opposite him. Bray Wyatt sucks. He has sucked for four years without John Cena to help him get over. I'm absolutely positive Woken Matt will become a thousand times better once he is far away from Wyatt.

 

[The Life Of Pablo Ren]

Partially sure, but it's also bad because it's Matt Hardy... in WWE. WWE is never going to see star potential in Matt like they do in Jeff, he's never going to get the time or exposure he needs to fully work with the gimmick. He's a small part of a very big show with far more important things going on in it, and it's only gonna get worse the closer we get to WrestleMania.

The Broken gimmick was allowed to thrive in TNA because Matt and Jeff were focal points of the show, WWE is never going to give Matt that liberty. Even if they wanted to, I'm not entirely sure if they could considering all the other bases they have to cover.

Who knows what happens when Jeff comes back, but if the reports from a few months ago are any indication and they see money in a future Jeff solo run, I doubt they're gonna let him anywhere near the gimmick.

 

[enviousdominous]

I'm a very paranoid person, so I speculate a lot.

I believe that the WWE had felt that in their subtle way they had already built to this moment. Matt had been dropping cues for the crowd like casually saying "delete" or "broken" in conversation during his promos.

I don't know where WWE is in terms of acquiring the rights to the BROKEN Matt Hardy character, but I believe that the WWE had a random eureka moment when they considered using WOKEN instead of BROKEN and figured that they could just force this gimmick into existence without anyone viable to test it with or against.

I like it when characters with night and day differences to their personalities mix it up. Putting a raving lunatic against a raving lunatic doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe I'd warm up to a WOKEN Matt Hardy stable where he renames Bray Wyatt into Brother Augustus, or something. The clips I've seen, it's like watching a member of The Flat Earth Society argue with a member of The Hollow Earth Society.

 

[Navi]

Of course my opinion will be the different one on the thread, as I for one am enjoying this little squabble between the two. Everyone is right that Wyatt is a guy going nowhere, but for a guy just wandering around, he has seemed to remain relevant and always stays near the main event picture. Matt Hardy has always played second fiddle to his brother Jeff and this "Woken" or "Broken" character is just a way for him to break away.

Between the two Hardy's Jeff has always been the most exciting one of the two, both in looks, on the mic and in the ring. Matt was always like just there. Does anyone remember the days of "Fatt" Hardy, I do, I remember them well. When both were in TNA you kept hearing about this "Broken" Matt Hardy, and watching the clips back on Youtube it was hilarious. Who knew Matt could pull something off like that, all of a sudden Jeff was the boring one.

It's a well known fact that there was a legal fight between the Hardy's and TNA for the rights to use the gimmick when they came over to the WWE, so it's fully understandable that it wasn't used right away. Now that they do have the rights, I think Matt will run with it and what better person to play it off again than another nutter, Bray Wyatt.

If Randy Orton can burn down a rundown cabin in the woods and cause Bray Wyatt to channel a long dead women, enough said about that, then sure losing a couple of matches could be enough to send Hardy around the bend. I for one am willing to let this play out for awhile as it's only been a couple of weeks since it started. Fans want immediate gratification and this isn't a story line that will give them one. They've started the build to something, so let's see where this goes. It's not like these guys are setting the world on fire to begin with, they are both mid level talents. Nice to see the mid level getting something to work with for a change. I just wonder what Jeff will do when he comes back, which should be soon right?

 

[Spencesc11]

Why not pair up Wyatt and Hardy??? Neither seems to have a place right now. Maybe as a "crazy" tag team they could build momentum and become relevant again.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

It had plenty of build. Between the time in TNA and the seven months or so that Hardy has been back, they have given it about as much build as one would expect. Sure they could have had more Broken references before he cracked but that would not have improved what we are seeing now. And what we are seeing now is the problem. It has just been a cheaper (literally) version of the gimmick. WWE isn't paying for other characters or on location work. Maybe that is coming, but this is Rumble and Mania season. WWE doesn't focus and doesn't have to invest in low card singles feuds. They mostly focus on their main events.

What we've seen, is what was expected. And it's not that bad. It's just not that good.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

This should lead up to The Final Deletion of Horrors match and it will effectively shut off everyone's brain who views it. I'm not very firmiliar with the whole Broken gimmick outside of his Final Deletion match with Jeff Hardy (That I found entertaining in the weirdest possible way). Matt Hardy has floundered now that popular Jeff is injured. This Woken Matt character is probably the best thing they can do with the guy right now. I'm holding out hope that they can do something really memorable here so it's not just another feud that Bray Wyatt sucks the life out of.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

In my opinion, it sucks because it's just not good no matter which way you slice it. When the whole Broken thing was going on in TNA, I'd look up videos of it on YouTube because I was genuinely curious about it. Aside from the constant talk and speculation about when TNA was gonna close shop, how lousy the product was, etc. this was one of the only relevant things to come about in a long while. If sports entertainment silliness is your thing, then something like Broken/Woken is a dream come true; if people are into it, that's great but it's just not something that's for everybody and I'm one of those who just aren't into it. As far as a build to it, I figure WWE probably felt that everyone was already familiar with it anyhow, had seen the same videos online, knew the gist of it and figured "why wait?" and I agree. Hardy's done some of the various mannerisms since he returned to WWE, fans have kept up with all the various goings on between Hardy and Impact Wrestling regarding their tussle over who owned the "Broken" idea so factor all of those things together and there's already been plenty of build.

What I do like about it is that Matt Hardy is finally out of his brother's shadow to a significant degree. He's probably never going to be viewed as being Jeff's equal, but at least he's gone out and done something that's entirely his own creation, something that, for once, had him in the driver's seat rather than Jeff and I gotta give him props for it. He thought outside the box, way outside the box, and it's something that caught on and looks like it's being accepted in WWE, so I may not like it, but I respect the creativity.

As long as Matt Hardy stays in the general mid-card area with this, I'm fine with it but it's not something that'll interest me in the main event. Silliness is ingrained in pro wrestling in many ways when you get right down to it, but a middle aged man spouting gibberish about cosmic wars and different planes of existence while speaking in a mock British accent while making some sort of giggling sound is a whole other thing.

 

[Woodstuff]

The issues everyone has with Woken Matt Hardy being underwhelming since emerging in WWE has nothing to do with the build up or introduction of the character imo. It all comes down to the fact that when he was in TNA/ROH, Matt was THE star attraction. On shows where characters come second to in ring action, the accent and "broken-isms" helped Matt stand out from the crowd as an interesting main event CHARACTER. Now he's in WWE, it all seems underwhelming because he's caught up in a mid-card feud with a guy most "smart" fans have given up on.

Matt's WWE fate lies in the hands of those same "smart" fans in my opinion. They'll either continue to chant DELETE and hopefully guide the casual audience to the same level of admiration the hardcore fans have for him, or theyll turn their nose up and throw Matt under the bus in some misguided attempt at "sticking it" to VKM for ruining the character, or whatever.

 

[Kunztown]

The character hasn't even debuted an entrance or match, and it is already lame because of wwe creative. That's how WWE creative is. They don't take chances. The "loss matches and then become crazy/tantrum thing has been overdone so many times". I would of liked a "Face Turn" from Wyatt and Him and Matt Beat down an Opponent and then Bray has Influence on the Change of Matt. Make it a "Slow Build". Then at Royal Rumble, the Debuting Woken Matt Appears and helps out Bray and does "Delete Chants for each superstar being throw out, only for Bray to Turn on HIM!!! Then after eliminated, Matt goes bezerk and does the Delete Chant at Bray! Then that Builds to a match cultivating at Wrestlemania with the Budget Brothers being in Wyatt's Corner and Brother Weirdo being in Woken Matt's Corner.

 

[OYDK]

The Woken character is a watered down version of the Broken character. That's basically the long and short of it. It was never going to be as original as it was in TNA because, well, this is the WWE. They have all the control over the gimmick and it was clear from the start that even if the Broken character debuted, it was going to be an over-produced, corny, lite version of the original. You could have had a year of incredible build and the character would have still been a dumbed down caricature of "Broken Matt Hardy."

If you didn't see this coming, I assume you haven't been keeping up with the WWE for the past ten years.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

We can go on and on and on about who's to blame for the gimmick being lame. The problem is that this gimmick was never suppose to worked on the big stage because it's indy gimmick. That's why WWE NEVER wanted to use it in the first place, they knew that in the current system that this couldn't work to it's full potential. But Matt get on pushing and pushing on this and at some point he was able to get the rights and since WWE had really nothing for him, they pretty much said, Screw it, he wants to do this thing, go for it, where going to see how we can make this happen without spending too much on it, at less it will keep matt out of our hair for a while, i feel that's pretty much what happened.

The problem is that, when they started this in TNA, Everybody was on board with this because it was different and they really needed something different too stand out so they didn'T mind spending a lot of money on filming outside and hiring Reby and using everybody else in matt'S family to do this. That what made the thing worked but WWE isn'T willing to do that because quite frankly, they don't really need that right now. They're not going to hired Reby mostly because she'S a PR nightmare and they won't use Maxell because that would give them so much bad publicity it wouldn'T be funny, same goes for reby's dad. Jeff is injured and i doubt that they would put him in this unless he truly wants to do it which i feel he doesn't.

So What'S left, Matt talking weird and doing bad faces. The weirdest thing in all of this is that Matt is so awful in this gimmick that for the first time in years, i feel like Bray wyatt is interesting again. That's weird.

Anyway, when Anthem president ed Northholm said way back in early 2017 that WWE wasn't interested at all by the gimmick and nobody believed him, i got the feeling he was right because if they truly we're interested in the gimmick, they wouldn't have half ass it like they did because when they are really interested in something, they do go all out on it to make sure it'S successful and when they don'T care, you get ''Woken'' Matt Hardy.

 

[Razz]

I'm not going to give up on the angle yet but the Broken Hardy stuff has been quite boring up to date in WWE so far. It is also overproduced like most WWE segments like the word Woken flashing with a professional animation every time which is not meeting the genuine charm and camp of what they did in Impact so far. WWE creative would probably never come up with segments like where they are wrestling the Kangaroo or the whole final deletion and total nonstop deletion stuff with the ring and whole show in a show at the compound.

It is just like any backstage WWE segments. In Impact they did somewhat ground breaking stuff like the backstage segments where things become funny, creative, surreal and broke away from the regular programming with JB helping producing them. They even did a similar thing post Hardyz with JB/Abyss vs Matthews/Steiner for Slammiversary and that turned out better than it should have. Showing that JB had somewhat to do with the success of it as well. Also having no segments outside the backstage, at the compound, Vanguard 1, senior Benjamin, Maxel, etc is not helping. But everything was so unique and genuine they let all that stuff build up for weeks before they got over. I'm Afraid if WWE incorporates that stuff they will do it without any build expecting everyone to know who they are what it is all about it. An easy way they could have continued the angle was the last thing that happened to them in impact was they went into a time portal to get belts from around the world but they never came back and Abyss/Steve got the impact titles. They could have done vignettes in WWE to explain they went into a loop or something and got returned to their old personas which explained why they were team extreme again. Slowly building up to them returning as broken. The fact the brought in Matt looking like Broken Matt but being his old persona for all those months didn't really help. The Hardyz should have come in as there old selves before building up this angle again if the WWE weren't going or able to do it right away.

 

[Olan]

Unpopular opinion but I have never liked the Broken/Woken Matt Hardy gimmick. I did not like it in TNA and it is not off to a good start in WWE. I simply cannot take it seriously. Now you pair it in a feud with Bray Wyatt and instead of strange and mysterious you get 2 people that ramble on saying nothing that makes sense and laughing for no reason.

So to answer the OP's question: The Matt Hardy 'Woken' character sucks because it is a horrible gimmick period

 

[Radical]

Part of pro wrestling is the fact there is silliness and over-the-top characters. It's always a fine line to walk, though, between too silly and too bland or real.

The bottom line is ... is it entertaining? AND - will it draw money? And if this is more of a mid-card act then maybe drawing money is more along the lines of merchandise sales and maybe a slight added draw to watch the shows or PPVs.

To be honest, I found the Woken Hardy at little too corny for my tastes. Like Bray Wyatt is already a stretch with his laughing but Hardy's is even more corny. I guess... that's the point?

Anyway, I'll still be fine to let it play out but, like any GOOD story, there needs to be clear and obvious reasons for why there is a feud going on and why I should care about it. So that needs to be established over the next while for it to be any good.

It's though going against Wyatt, though... amazingly he still has fan support after getting the short end of the stick so many times in feuds... it may be partially fan sympathy, but that only works for so long.

In a way, makes sense for Wyatt to someone turn face with this because he does get more of the face pop and this would be a way for him to maybe get positive momentum (and wins) before a big heel turn. I'm thinking maybe with an almost a stale-mate feud with Hardy, Wyatt joins Hardy in a twist then starts getting REGULAR wins and building up credibility until something happens, causing Wyatt to turn back on Hardy.

 

[Azane]

WWE used to think "Nobody watches wrestling outside of WWE", it was why they were questionable about bringing AJ Styles over without a big character development, but we saw AJ Drop in without losing a step from TNA/NJ,

Now we see the opposite, where they're basing Matt Hardy entirely off assuming everyones in on the Meme from TNA.

I was hopeful when I first saw Matt pop up, but you can smell Vince's fingerprints all over the Woken variations.

If you connect Broken TNA Matt to Woken WWE Matt, the character make sense. but if you just follow WWE's story, it makes No Sense.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Its certainly beginning to suck since he has done literally next to nothing other than laugh in a strange tone.


No thanks.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I'm i the only one that wants Bray Wyatt and Woken Matt Hardy as a tag team after last night. That the first thing that pop into my mind after seeing those 2 laughing was these 2 would make such a great tag team after this feud is over.

I don't know how you would get from Matt wanting to ''Delete'' Bray to them joining forces but that something i really would love to see happening in the near future.

 

[vet712]

I think it's just fine. Woken Matt Hardy has only officially been in the WWE for a month, or so. I don't see any reason to start bitching now. This is what we wanted. If you were expecting Vince to pull the trigger of the shotgun with this gimmick on the road to WrestleMania, no less, then shame on you. You're getting what you deserve. It's a fun gimmick and it will be fun. Give it some time and once Jeff comes back, it will really be fun. I don't see any reason to be complaining about it right now.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

Nah. He didn't need build. Every wrestling fan already knew about his Broken gimmick. Plenty of wrestlers from various promotions pop in without any need to bring us up to speed on who they are week by week. Hardy's no different. No, the character sucks because someone somewhere thought they should focus on the laughing bits and here we are. Already burnt out on what should have been a fun foray into crazy town. How they managed to Starbucks a gimmick from TNA is an underrated feat. Kudos WWE for another marvelous overproduction.