The WWE aired the much-anticipated Ultimate Deletion as the main event of Monday Night Raw this past week, and the match saw Woken Matt Hardy defeat Bray Wyatt at the Hardy Compound in North Carolina. The match ended with Wyatt thrown into the Lake of Reincarnation and never resurfacing. With Wyatt’s fate in doubt after the match, Matt Hardy released a new video on his YouTube channel that showed the outcome of the Ultimate Deletion match, and it appears that he kept his promise of deleting Bray Wyatt. The next step concerns what the WWE plans to do with Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt following the big match.
Matt Hardy And The Ultimate Deletion
When Matt Hardy returned to the WWE at WrestleMania 33 , his fans wanted to see him return to his Broken Matt gimmick that he popularized in TNA Impact Wrestling. However, due to legal restraints, the WWE was unable to do so, as Hardy’s former company threatened lawsuits if he tried to use it.
However, Impact Wrestling made the decision to allow wrestlers to keep their gimmicks when they leave and made it retroactive so that Matt Hardy could use his gimmick in the WWE if they chose to go in that direction. The WWE gave the idea a chance and scheduled the Ultimate Deletion , their version of Impact Wrestling’s Final Deletion .
As Impact Wrestling showed, people who fall into the Lake of Reincarnation come out as a past being. A perfect example was Shane Helms going in and coming out as Hurricane Helmes and Jeff Hardy going in and coming out as his Willow persona.
Bray Wyatt never came out of the water. The new video released showed the Dilapidated Boat bringing Senor Benjamin Bray Wyatt’s lantern from the Lake of Reincarnation — the only thing remaining of the Eater of Worlds. Yes, it is as strange as it sounds.
Why WWE’s “Ultimate Deletion” made fans lose their minds: https://t.co/O735z9oBkn @MATTHARDYBRAND pic.twitter.com/F4mYzOSdTr
— Nerdist (@nerdist) March 20, 2018
The WWE Surprised By The Popularity Of Ultimate Deletion
Before the Ultimate Deletion aired, Michael Cole apologized to audience members for forcing them to sit through the match. According to SB Nation , Vince McMahon thought fans would hate the match and that explains why Michael Cole buried it. However, #UltimateDeletion was the top-trending keyword on Twitter over two hours after the show ended.
It was polarizing, with just as many haters as fans, but it had people talking. Matt Hardy lives this gimmick and has for two years now. When TMZ Sports caught up with him, Hardy stayed in character and threatened to delete Vince McMahon if he didn’t like it.
From the sound of it, thanks to the social media support which the WWE covets, there will be more Woken Matt Hardy deletion matches coming to the WWE. However, whether Bray Wyatt will ever be the same again is a different matter.
