Matt Hardy is no longer under contract with All Elite Wrestling.
Fightful (via Fightful Select) is reporting that Hardy is now officially a free agent. The outlet previously reported Hardy’s contract was originally set to expire at the end of March, and Hardy confirmed this as well during an episode of his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast.
It was noted that there is word going around in AEW that Matt Hardy’s contract had been extended through WrestleMania. It’s unclear why that would be the case, as it doesn’t seem that he had any injury time added on.
Hardy recently said he was presented with a new contract offer from AEW, but it appears that he chose not to accept it. Fightful notes that Hardy told those close to him that he was letting his existing deal run out.
What’s next?
For those asking, Jeff Hardy is still under contract with AEW. Matt recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard, who asked if the Hardys had talked about having their contract start and expiration dates line up.
Matt said that Jeff, who has been sidelined with a broken nose since February, has a bit more time on his contract due to injury time. He also estimated that Jeff was “three or four weeks” away from getting cleared to return.
On past episodes of his podcast, Matt (and Jeff Hardy, during guest appearances) spoke about the Hardys still having value, and how they could add value to AEW. Despite their respective frustrations with creative direction, Matt said he loves AEW and the company is paramount for the health of the industry. Moving forward, Matt told WrestleZone that hopes that he and Jeff can be optimized, no matter where they are. He also noted how he’d like to be in a position to succeed, just as Sting was during his AEW run.
Optimization
“I want to be optimized wherever I’m at. If I’m with Jeff, I want to be optimized as The Hardys. That is very, very important to me. And that is a fight I’m willing to fight because if nothing else, I’ll just keep my ass at home. I don’t have to go back to working. I’ve worked really hard to put myself in this position,” Hardy explained.
“The other thing is, there are so many AEW fans, and this is diehard fans, that are so overly critical of things when it comes to the product. When they look at some guys like Jericho — Chris still kicks ass as far as in the ring. He works really hard, and sure, is he what he was 25 years ago? Of course not. But he still is extremely good. He has a name, he has value, and there’s a lot of equity in Chris Jericho. Same goes for Matt and Jeff Hardy.
“Some people get upset or hot like, ‘Oh, come on, get them out of here. They’re not who they were.’ We can. We can go out and be a huge benefit to any promotion and I believe that, and that’s another hill I’ll die on. I think there’s a way to use us where we’re in a position of relevancy. Because we still have to win and we have to be kept at a certain level. But we can definitely help build the future tag teams of tomorrow. That’s what both of us want to do.”
