Vince McMahon Was Allegedly Against Infamous Gimmick Match

Vince McMahon ruled over WWE for several years with an iron fist and that is why he had quite a few peculiarities that others couldn’t comprehend. Matt Hardy is one such star who knows how McMahon operates all too well and it appears he has revealed one infamous gimmick match that McMahon was not a fan of.

Cinematic matches are a relatively recent addition to wrestling, despite WWE’s early experiments with such presentations dating back to the ’90s. Matt Hardy is widely recognized, including by current Head of Creative Triple H, for advancing the concept with his work.

The campy charm of Hardy’s “Final Deletion” match in TNA in 2016 and its WWE follow-up, “Ultimate Deletion” in 2018, won many fans over. However, some were taken aback when Michael Cole introduced the WWE segment with an “apology for what they were about to show us.”

While speaking on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy revealed that the apology line was a directive from Vince McMahon, meant to preemptively address potential criticism of the segment’s departure from WWE’s traditional style. Hardy felt this approach undermined their efforts, arguing that it was counterproductive to promote something while simultaneously discrediting it.

“I knew that came from Vince. That was absolutely a Vince line, fed in … they were trying to cover their a** in case it’s something that didn’t seem like it’s up to WWE standards. [But] I felt like, give us the fairest opportunity to go out and do our thing, and let it be as greatly received as it could possibly be. I felt like it was just very counterproductive.”

Hardy admitted that the line hurt him but understood it as a reflection of McMahon’s tendency to be cautious about ideas that were not his own. He noted that since “Ultimate Deletion” was not a Vince McMahon creation, it did not receive the same level of support as WWE’s own concepts. Hardy believed that the promotion of the match should have been more positive, given that it was a concept they were trying to integrate into WWE.

“It wasn’t a Vince creation. Because it wasn’t a Vince creation, much like a WCW, it’s not something that he was probably going to fully get behind. It’s a concept that we got over at TNA, but now it’s a WWE thing. We’re trying to push it and promote it in WWE, so why be counterproductive to something you own?”

Matt Hardy’s vision for the Broken Matt character was never fully realized in WWE, but with TNA’s ongoing relationship with WWE, perhaps fans might get to see his Broken character return and have a proper end once and for all.

Do you believe The Ultimate Deletion deserved better in WWE? Is there a chance of seeing Broken Matt Hardy back in WWE? Let us know in the comments section below!