In an update on the IMPACT Wrestling vs. Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy situation regarding the ownership of the “Broken” gimmick used by the Hardy family in IMPACT Wrestling prior to them returning to the WWE, Anthem Media and IMPACT Wrestling’s Ed Nordholm released a statement to PWInsider.com addressing the issues.

Nordholm noted that in response to the ongoing speculation concerning IMPACT’s position with respect to the “Broken Brilliance” creative, that he was providing a log of communicatons on the subject and the contractual structure of IMPACT’s relationship with respect to the intellectual property matters. Nordholm noted that there has never been any argument from IMPACT Wrestling that The Hardy’s were key contributors to the development of the characters and storyline, or that Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy executed on their roles in spectacular fashion, but that the position taken by The Hardy’s is a massive disservice to the contributions of the rest of the creative team including Jeremy Borash, Dave Lagana, Matt Conway and Billy Corgan and is totally at odds with the terms of their contracts, before stating that The Hardy’s would have you believe that Anthem are somehow avoiding their lawyers to address this.

Nordholm then further noted in a log of communications that they have not been avoiding The Hardy’s. Nordholm noted that on March 10th, EBN spoke with executives at Ring of Honor about “Broken Brilliance” being used in ROH and indicated his willingness to provide an arrangement that would allow the creative to be used in Ring of Honor and encouraged Ring of Honor to have Matt Hardy speak with him if he wanted to pursue that discussion. On March 11th, EBN spoke at length with Matt by phone about the structure of an amicable agreement for use of the “Broken Brilliance” creative and that on March 14th, Matt sent a text message at 4:05pm which read, “Tried giving you a call, it rang and went busy. I’m open to working things out amicably as we spoke about. The lawyer who represents me is interested in seeing your offer. My lawyer’s e-mail is [redacted] which you could sent the offer to for review. Thanks.” Nordholm noted that he responded via text message at 6:41pm stating, “Thank you Matt. I was supposed to be [flying] into NYC today and am a little twisted. I will pull something together with [our] lawyers and try to get it over to your lawyer tomorrow or Thursday at latest.” Nordholm noted that on March 16th at 8:25pm, he sent the following update in a text message to Matt Hardy stating, “Hi Matt. My lawyer got me a draft too late to get reviewed for today. I will look at it in the morning. Sorry for the delay.” and that Matt Hardy responded at 9;16pm stating, “Ok, he’s ready for it. Thanks for the update.”

Nordholm noted that on March 17th, counsel for Anthem Wrestling delivered a draft proposal to counsel for Matt Hardy and that on March 24th, counsel for Anthem Wrestling followed up with Matt Hardy’s counsel requesting comments on the proposal and that on March 27th, counsel for Matt Hardy responded stating that they have been away and have not reviewed the proposal, but will be back in the next few days. Nordholm noted that after that, there was no further communication until April 18th when counsel for Matt Hardy left a voicemail for counsel for Anthem Wrestling asking to arrange a meeting. Nordholm noted that on April 20th, EBN contacted WWE by e-mail to determine the veracity of internet rumors concerning WWE’s interest in using “Broken Brilliance”, to which WWE responded the following day by e-mail stating that there was no interest on their end and that on the same day, counsel for Matt Hardy sent a follow up message requesting a meeting. Nordholm noted that on April 27th, lawyers spoke to arrange a meeting and that on May 16th the lawyers met, but no agreement was reached.

The report from PWInsider.com noted that the e-mail from Nordholm was indeed legimate, as were the files that he attached and that the excerpt of Hardy’s contract features several highlighted passages that denoted that any original intellectual property created while working for IMPACT Wrestling would become IMPACT’s property under “work for hire” rules and that they would retain ownership of the intellectual property, as well as the video rights to the performances, even after the contractual relationship between the two sides had completed. The PDF file from the excerpt of Matt Hardy’s contract with IMPACT Wrestling is available at this link. Meanwhile, the redacted e-mail exchange between Nordholm and some from WWE revolves around the online rumors that WWE were looking to get involved in the situation between Anthem and The Hardy’s and that they were looking to use the “Broken” personas on their programming, with the e-mail stating from WWE’s side, that there was no interest on their end in getting involved. The redacted e-mail between Anthem and WWE is available at this link.