Yesterday on Twitter, Matt Hardy threatened to “expose” Jeff Jarrett and TNA president Ed Nordholm if they didn’t “wrap up the Broken” trademark issues. Shortly after, GFW/Impact Executive Jeff Jarrett took part in a conference call where he discussed the status of the trademark issue.
“I’ve had a healthy exchange with Jeff [Hardy] over the past two weeks. We wished each other a happy Father’s Day. The IP situation is strictly, quite frankly, the IP language that is used in our contract is almost identical to the IP language used in the WWE contract… intellectual property law is rather cut and dry, that you have the publisher, the writers, and then you have another element to that, you have the performance. There’s people in Nashville that can sing a song and take it to number one, and 10 years later, another artists can come along, and they can sing that exact same song and take it to number one, and they make their money off of performances.
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“But, the writers and the publishers continue to make that money. It goes without saying, the wrestling business is different. Vince McMahon owned the name “The Rock” until The Rock bought it back. Same with Razor [Ramon], same with Diesel, and I can go on and on about guys jumping ship, especially back in the Attitude Era. Guys would jump ship from WWE to WCW. Big Bossman was never the Big Bossman in WCW, but quite frankly, there’ll only be one Big Bossman. And it goes without saying. Matt’s performance – there’s only one “Broken” Matt. He did that, it transcended the Hardy Boyz, or Matt Hardy. It goes without saying, there’s only one Brother Nero. When there’s two Jeff’s in a vacation home it gets kind of confusing, so we started calling Nero, Nero, instead of Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy.
“So, hats off to those guys in the performance, but it goes to the ownership, and there’s multiple writers. There’s writers who were a part of the ‘Broken Brilliance,’ that it’s very obvious that they’re no longer with the company. Matt Conway and Billy Corgan, to be exact. But you have Jeremy Borash, Jimmy Long, and Matt [Hardy], and Jeff [Hardy]. So there were a group of writers, without question. The ownership always lies with the publisher, and that’s not new to this industry, or intellectual property law.”
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Legal jargon aside, it appears as if the Hardys are no closer to using their Broken characters in the WWE than they were when they made their debut at WrestleMania 33.
So, for now, the “Great War” will rage on.
