News broke earlier this week that there was a distinct possibility that Matt and Jeff Hardy, legendary tag team and singles wrestlers currently signed to TNA Impact Wrestling, were perhaps going to be leaving for their original stomping grounds – WWE. I gather Dave Meltzer broke the news, but a lot of his speculation gets posted as fact so I paid it no heed initially. Upon waking up, the cat was out of the bag, and it seems like it’s true.

I have two minds in regards to this situation. On one hand, I would absolutely love seeing the Hardys wrestle at WrestleMania this year, but what version of the Hardy Boys will we be getting?

Let’s take a trip back in time to a bit less than a year ago, Matt Hardy had just finished up a decent, albeit bland, run as an egotistical heel character and suffered a storyline injury from his brother Jeff. He returned sporting a streak of white hair on his head, a limp (from said fake injury) and a bizarre accent that sounded almost like a South African / Afrikaans accent by way of the deep south. For a few weeks, nobody knew what the hell was happening. Most fans shrugged it off as a terrible storyline, Matt Hardy was obviously being awful and they threatened to never watch TNA again like some annoying fans do 24/7 on the internet. It almost came across, taking into account the previous character, what an egotistical jerk would do to pretend he was now an evil mastermind and was trying to get attention.

Then it happened.

TNA gave the Hardys a camera and said – have at it.

What followed was week after week of the most insane nonsensical wrestling programming I have ever seen. It was a MST3K fans dream – a wrestling version of The Room or Manos: The Hands of Fate. This was a storyline involving a robot army, a sentient boat, faithful servants including Matt’s gardener and faithful scribe, seven deities that have imbued Matt with powers and a new way of life, a fight on an active volcano, and recently – time travel. Why does it work? Much like the Sharknado films, the fans are let in on the joke. This isn’t serious, it’s like some weird comicbook story come to life, and each week it gets sillier and sillier while the rest of any given episode of TNA stays normal.

Click here for a run-down of the Broken Saga with videos

For the first time in a while, I was eagerly awaiting each episode of TNA, to see what happened next. Honestly, I was waiting to see if it culminated with the Hardys fighting aliens or something – it was getting that ridiculous. Most importantly, I was getting into it because Matt Hardy – a man who lived in his brothers shadow nearly his entire career was not only relevant, but more “over” than he had ever been. He was no longer “The Jannetty” of this tag team, they were equals once again.

With a “changing of the guard” at TNA, there seems to be sweeping changes on the horizon as Dutch Mantell and Jeff Jarrett are soon to be booking everything. I would speculate that they are not down with the “Broken Saga”. Is WWE going to be a good fit? My fear is that we are about to see the end of this new character and WWE will force Matt to switch to a more “classical” version of himself, like he took a dip in the fabled lake of Resurrection (part of this storyline). Gone will be Vamguard 1, Matt’s robot sidekick and we’ll never see Senior Benjamin again 🙁 I could be wrong, WWE has surprised me before, and I hope they do it again. I want Broken Matt vs the Wyatts, New Day, and much more, not a nostalgia trip for guys being forced to act like they are 20 again.