Sportskeeda reports that Jeff Hardy, former WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champion — along with his brother, Matt Hardy — will be out of commission until 2020.
As The Inquisitr reported, Jeff was originally estimated to be out of action for six to nine months. In addition, the Hardy brothers had to relinquish their championships following Jeff’s injury, which was first reported by journalist Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio .
“Jeff Hardy is injured, I don’t know how severe. It was on the Saturday night show in Madison Wisconsin. He was at the show last night — I haven’t heard about tonight — he was at the show in Rochester, Minnesota. He was in the corner of Matt. He was limping significantly so it’s probably some sort of a leg injury.”
Outside of the tag team division, Jeff is one of the most popular singles performers in the WWE. This makes his injury as concerning for the company as for fans.
Today, wrestling journalist Brad Shephard posted an update on Jeff to Twitter . He claims to have access to a source who appears to confirm that Hardy won’t be returning to the ring for a while.
“According to a source in #WWE, @JEFFHARDYBRAND will be out until sometime in the 1st quarter of 2020. Jeff’s absence is considered a big loss internally, as he still sells merchandise pretty well.”
The Hardy Boyz relinquished the SmackDown Tag Team Championship on #SDLive this week due to Jeff Hardy’s injury
Which team do you think will win the titles next and take their place as champions? ?? pic.twitter.com/Xe4bIwSBWp
— GiveMeSport WWE (@GiveMeSportWWE) May 1, 2019
Although it’s unclear just how severe Jeff’s knee injury is, he already has a bad right knee thanks to a 2015 dirt bike accident. He has also been struggling with a torn ACL for some time.
The injury took place following The Hardy Boyz’ defeat of the Usos, when Lars “The Freak” smashed Jeff and his brother into the canvas. The surprise ended up destroying Jeff’s knee and requiring him to undergo surgery, per Distractify .
However, the injury isn’t just a thorn in the side of The Hardy Boyz — it affected the entire SmackDown Live tag team division. After the pair was out of the picture, the division’s only active tag teams were The B-Team, Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev, Heavy Machinery, and The Colons.
Of course, new tag teams have already been teased for SmackDown Live , and while none are official yet, it seems more than likely that they will come together following the unclear future of The Hardy Boyz.
As of now, the WWE doesn’t appear to have a clear direction for Matt, meaning they will likely be banking on Jeff’s return — whenever that may be — to rebuild The Hardy Boyz.
