Wrestling in three separate decades, Matt Hardy has managed to keep himself relevant through a variety of different gimmicks, character changes as well as his use of social media. In 2002, Hardy began a solo career in WWE and his subsequent "Version 1" persona was named Best Gimmick by Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Hardy's eccentric "Broken" gimmick, which he debuted in 2016, earned him multiple awards and praise from wrestling critics, including a second Best Gimmick award.
Matt gained notoriety in WWF's tag team division due to the Hardys' participation in tables, ladders, and chairs matches. As a tag team wrestler, he is a 14-time world tag team champion, having held six WWF/World Tag Team Championships, three WWE/Raw Tag Team Championships, one SmackDown Tag Team Championship, one ROH World Tag Team Championship, one WCW Tag Team Championship and two TNA World Tag Team Championships.
Speaking on Fightful, Matt commented on explaining the angle to his brother Jeff Hardy: “I’m not sure Jeff did at first, but once he got into it and once he was Broken and he was Brother Nero he was all about it. He loved it, he really did enjoy it. Bray and I — we’re much more on a similar thought process.
I’m a big fan of Bray’s creative process. I love the Fiend and the duality of the Firefly Funhouse character as well. How it gives him range. And it’s very similar in ways to the Broken universe. And I felt with five hours of live television programming variety is good. Variety is very good.”