The Broken Road: Plans for Matt Hardy at WrestleMania 34

Matt Hardy is still Woken, still bent on deletion and still not reaching his full potential. In the past few months, Woken Matt Hardy has not gained any character development, nor has he done much other than laugh at the camera once in a while. This made me wonder what exactly WWE is going to give Matt Hardy at WrestleMania this year. Unfortunately, judging by the lack of creative direction with the character, it looks as if it could be nothing. Or worse, it could be another three months of the static feud with Bray Wyatt.

Bray Wyatt and His Booking

The Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt feud has been in effect for a very long time on WWE programming. Possibly too long. The beginning was fiery hot with all sorts of fun promos and an introduction to Woken Matt, but it slowly began to fizzle out when WWE would continuously deny it a proper payoff. The main problem with Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt was the problem in most Bray Wyatt feuds: a lack of progression.

Bray Wyatt’s feuds seem to be a flavor of the month. They’re fun and exciting for a few weeks and then they slowly become repetitive and overdone. There is such a thing as too many jumbotron promos. His matches may deliver sometimes, but it seems that WWE gets excited about a new Bray storyline only to forget about it a week later, providing it with no clear direction. Look at Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor, they had a few decent matches and there was no incentive to keep the feud going. Sister Abigail was supposed to make her appearance at TLC 2017, but Bray was out for an illness that day and WWE has not pulled the trigger since. Granted it may have gone poorly, but it was something to spice up a dead feud.

In addition, they were granted their first match against each other at Raw 25, which seemed like a big deal, but it really only brought an anticlimactic match finish with no indication of where to go next. They’ve been thrown in bouts together since then such as the Royal Rumble (where they eliminated each other at the same time) and a recent fatal five way match on Raw where Wyatt ate the pin. Other than those instances and costing each other matches though, what has changed?

The Solution: Storyline Progression

Nothing in this feud is exciting anymore because it is already played out. However, since I do not see any other way for Matt Hardy to get on the WrestleMania card, I believe the feud is salvageable. In order to get this feud to the top of Raw, WWE needs to frame it differently and give it more air time. They should frame it as an eternal struggle between two equal powers. They’ve already planted seeds of this, but in order to expand they need it to translate to the ring.

I like what they did at the Royal Rumble where they eliminated each other, but I say take it a step further. This needs to be like a bad movie, and to do that it needs some smidge of creativity and over-dramatization from all parties involved. Hardy and Wyatt should have a few matches before a big WrestleMania rubber match, but here’s the kicker: there should never be a winner in any of their matches until the April spectacular. I want all the stops pulled. Double count outs, double pins, dual disqualifications, almost as if they know what each other’s thinking every single match. That would really ramp up the humor that this feud desperately needs. Of course it cannot be overly repetitive, but each match needs to have a unique stalemate ending.

The Final Payoff

In order to end the rivalry once and for all, they should then have a match at WrestleMania – a falls count anywhere match in order to determine the true superior. To book this, Matt Hardy should go over, therefore recruiting Bray Wyatt to his Woken Wisdom. This would then take the relationship into a whole new direction as Bray can exercise his other creative abilities and not be hamstrung to the same nonsensical character. This could lead to a tag title run and much much more for the two, and Bray Wyatt would officially be Woken (and maybe get Senor Benjamin in there too?).

This storyline needs more layers and depth to become the thing that WWE wants it to be. By taking the correct steps and giving it the time it needs, this feud has the potential to be the most unique thing on WWE television. Until then though, I guess we’ll just be hearing laughs.