10 Wrestlers Who Secretly Changed WWE History
9. Matt Hardy
Matt Hardy was another early adopter of the world wide wrestling web. His ideas were a little ahead of their time, however, as the internet wasn't equipped to handle what he wanted to do at the time. Speaking of being at the vanguard, that's precisely where Matt was during his 'Broken' phase.
In 2016, Hardy completely changed up his gimmick. He started portraying a 'Broken' version of himself, who claimed to possess magical powers and spoke with an English accent... at least, he was presumably meant to be English?
Matt fought his brother Jeff in the now-infamous 'Final Deletion' on an episode of TNA Impact. The match was pre-taped and took place mostly on the 'Hardy Compound', and involved Jeff leaping out of a tree, shooting fireworks at his brother, and falling into the 'Lake of Reincarnation'.
The match was incredibly divisive at the time, but it became an invaluable blueprint just a few years later. When the pandemic struck and conventional wrestling went out the window, suddenly The Final Deletion didn't seem so stupid anymore.
If Matt Hardy hadn't proven that cinematic matches could work, who knows what WWE would have done in 2020.