Yesterday, March 1, Matt Hardy’s WWE contract expired. And with the expiration of his contract, he himself announced that he would be leaving WWE and entering free agency. Could he be headed to AEW? He spoke in his YouTube “Thoughts From The Throne” series about his decision –
“As of this current time, I have decided to let my contract with WWE expire. I am going to become a free agent, and that’s not saying I’m not going to return to WWE, I did not want to leave WWE, I love WWE – WWE is my home. WWE has treated me great as an employee for the last three years, they’ve been great to me, they’ve been great to my family, they’ve been great to my kids – I have nothing but great things to say about WWE and all the people who work there. And going back twenty-plus years ago, if it wasn’t for Vince McMahon I would not have been able to obtain the life, the quality of life I currently have. So I will always be grateful for that and I will always be appreciative of that.
I also have to say Triple H, Stephanie – they were always great to me. Michael Hayes a good friend of mine, I’m gonna miss him if I’m not there – everybody in WWE, really really good and very much like a family. So many talents there that I’m close friends with. It’s just time for me to take a break and become a free agent.
I didn’t want to leave WWE, because it is my home. The reason I needed to leave WWE is because when it comes to my creative stance and my creative outlook on myself and my career and how I want it to go for these last three or four years that I have to spend as an active in-ring competitor, I just think myself and WWE are on different pages. And it’s very important to me, because I love this business, man. If you know me, you know how crazy passionate that I am about this and how much I love it. And the last three or four years that I have as an in-ring competitor is really important to me to cement my legacy. And I want to enter a creative renaissance.
I am not obviously 25 or 35 years old. I am 45 years old and I have to be utilized in a certain way. But I still know in my heart – I know I have so much to offer this business. I have so much entertainment left inside this [broken voice] vessel and I have so much I want to give to each and every one of you. I want to enter a creative renaissance and I want to have non-stop input on my creative process, and I think that’s where WWE and I are on separate pages…
I am positive that am some point I will definitely be home, back with WWE once again. I mean, I think there’s definitely a WWE Hall of Fame ring waiting on myself and my brother. But I think right now, I need to weigh all my options, I need to see what all’s out there, and I need to see what is going to be the perfect environment for Matt Hardy to maximize these next few years of my career. And really give me a creative canvas to paint my masterpiece, because that is what I want to do right now…”
He also spoke about his options going forward. Zenith – the entity that created the Woken/Broken Matt character – will be coming to an end, as will his Free The Delete show. But he mentioned something that has a lot of wrestling fans thinking that he could be heading to AEW. One of the options he said he could become was “a dark omnipotent force”.
At the exact same time Thoughts From The Throne dropped, All Elite Wrestling tweeted this tweet…
https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/status/1234346136573530112
Could it be? Could Matt Hardy really be the Exalted One that the Dark Order have been speaking of?
