Last night's NXT featured some big developments ahead of the NXT Halloween Havoc event this Saturday. However, by far the biggest was the response that DarkState received when they vowed to regain their NXT Tag Team Championships at the PLE.
Matt and Jeff Hardy answered their challenge in a pre-taped segment from the Hardy Compound. The beloved tag team approached the "Lake of Reincarnation," submerging themselves in the water before standing tall as their Broken characters, "Broken" Matt Hardy and Brother Nero.
Accepting DarkState's challenge, they announced that the titles will be contested at NXT Halloween Havoc in a "Broken Rules Match."
We don't know exactly what that will look like, but don't bank on it being a cinematic match. Instead, it seems likely that we're getting the equivalent of a Street Fight or something along those lines.
Matt previously told Chris Van Vliet this about creating his "Broken" persona:
"The concept from Broken Matt, well there were so many young guys doing these amazing matches, doing all these crazy athletic, acrobatic moves and stuff. That's when really the business, the work rate, was picking up more and more and more. I said everybody's doing this, let me lean into something I feel like I'd be better at, an over-the-top, maybe half-assed, delusional character. This is larger than life, and I could do it and maybe even tap into the old school wrestling when you had Papa Shango, or when you had Undertaker, and he was more magical let me see if I can get into something like that and get it over."
"I said worst case scenario I'll see him, I come crazy, and then maybe even people will buy that I'm some sort of supernatural character. Something has happened to me after my brain was broken and I became cognizant of where my essence or my soul has been over all these years. I think the reason I really came up with that was because of True Blood. My wife and I were watching it. I was a big TV series person after I took time away from WWE initially."
"I'd watched True Detective, which season one was just incredible. Dexter, still a huge Dexter fan, watching the new stuff right now, and True Blood. I thought the vampire stuff was so cool. I was such a big fan of Alexander Skarsgård and how you see him in these different eras, how he has different clothes on, he has different haircuts, different styles, and just how much stuff changes through, that'd be so amazing if you could do an immortal gimmick."
"I said, obviously, we're all mortal, right? You can't really, truly doing a mortal gimmick when it comes to that. But what if I could be aware of where my soul has been, like the different bodies has been, and once it leaves one body, then it goes to another. I could say I've done all these people and I could say, in theory, I'm 2000 years old, if I'm aware of where my soul has been, and that was pretty much the the building blocks of Broken Matt Hardy."
Here's the full card for NXT Halloween Havoc:
NXT Championship Match
Trick Williams vs. Ricky Saints
NXT Women’s Championship Match
Jacy Jayne vs. Tatum Paxley
NXT North American Championship Day of the Dead Match
Ethan Page vs. Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.
NXT Tag Team Broken Rules Championship Match
The Hardys vs. DarkState
NXT Women’s North American Championship Match
Zaria vs. Blake Monroe
Je’Von Evans and Leon Slater vs. Mr. Iguana and La Parka