Broken Matt Hardy Brother Nero

2016catchphraseclassic

Broken Matt Hardy is a professional wrestling gimmick that debuted in TNA in 2016, featuring Matt Hardy adopting an English accent and calling his brother Jeff "Brother Nero" in surreal, cinematic segments. The angle became a viral hit after the July 2016 "Final Deletion" cinematic match, spawning the trending hashtags #BrokenMatt and #BrotherNero.

wrestling memescatchphrase memesso bad its good memeshashtag memes2016 memes

Overview

Broken Matt Hardy is a professional wrestling character created by Matt Hardy during his 2016 run in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), defined by a theatrical English accent, wild hair, and a habit of shouting "DELETE!" while calling his brother Jeff Hardy "Brother Nero"1. The gimmick reached viral escape velocity through a string of pre-taped, deliberately low-budget cinematic segments filmed on the Hardy family property in Cameron, North Carolina2.

Online fans compared the storyline's earnest weirdness to the 2003 cult film The Room, embracing catchphrases like "OBSOLETE!", "It's a dilapidated boat!", and Matt's constant summoning of "Brother Nero"3. The character mixed straight-faced supernatural lore, actual pyrotechnics, drone shots, and Matt's gardener Senor Benjamin into something wrestling audiences had never quite seen on weekly TV1.

How It Spread

Reaction hit critically online. r/SquaredCircle threads on Reddit obsessively re-quoted "It's a dilapidated boat!" and other lines from the match, and a novelty Twitter account roleplaying as the boat itself, listed with a location of "Cameron, NC," was set up on July 6th, 20164. Following the July 5th broadcast, the hashtags #TheFinalDeletion and #BrotherNero trended worldwide on Twitter, and Jeff Hardy briefly changed his own Twitter handle to "#BrotherNero DELETED" after losing the match5. Wrestlers including Chris Jericho and the Young Bucks' Nick Jackson publicly praised the reinvention on social media 67.

After Matt Hardy left TNA (later Impact Wrestling), a public legal fight broke out over ownership of the "Broken" gimmick, and when the Hardys returned to WWE at WrestleMania 33 on April 2nd, 2017, they were initially restricted to their older Team Extreme personas1. Once Impact relaxed its stance, WWE rebranded the character as "Woken Matt Hardy," debuting after a November 27th, 2017 match against Bray Wyatt during which Matt spasmed in the corner and cried "Delete!"1.

The callbacks kept coming. On March 19th, 2018, WWE aired "The Ultimate Deletion," another cinematic match at the Hardy Compound featuring Wyatt, the dilapidated boat, Senor Benjamin, Jeff Hardy as Brother Nero, and a finish in which Wyatt was pinned and pushed into the "Lake of Reincarnation"8. Reactions were compiled into a Twitter Moments story, Mick Foley tweeted "I HAVE NO IDEA WTF I JUST SAW…BUT I LIKED IT!" to more than 2,200 likes, and Hulk Hogan replied with a simple "I'm deleted"8.

How to Use This Meme

Fans typically invoke the meme by yelling "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!" in Matt Hardy's exaggerated English accent, by calling any brother figure "Brother Nero," or by labeling anything old or broken "OBSOLETE" or "a dilapidated boat." It is common to pair the phrases with clips from the Final Deletion or Ultimate Deletion matches when reacting to something absurd online3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Broken Matt Hardy Brother Nero

2016catchphraseclassic

Broken Matt Hardy is a professional wrestling gimmick that debuted in TNA in 2016, featuring Matt Hardy adopting an English accent and calling his brother Jeff "Brother Nero" in surreal, cinematic segments. The angle became a viral hit after the July 2016 "Final Deletion" cinematic match, spawning the trending hashtags #BrokenMatt and #BrotherNero.

wrestling memes catchphrase memes so bad its good memes hashtag memes 2016 memes

Overview

Broken Matt Hardy is a professional wrestling character created by Matt Hardy during his 2016 run in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), defined by a theatrical English accent, wild hair, and a habit of shouting "DELETE!" while calling his brother Jeff Hardy "Brother Nero"1. The gimmick reached viral escape velocity through a string of pre-taped, deliberately low-budget cinematic segments filmed on the Hardy family property in Cameron, North Carolina2.

Online fans compared the storyline's earnest weirdness to the 2003 cult film The Room, embracing catchphrases like "OBSOLETE!", "It's a dilapidated boat!", and Matt's constant summoning of "Brother Nero"3. The character mixed straight-faced supernatural lore, actual pyrotechnics, drone shots, and Matt's gardener Senor Benjamin into something wrestling audiences had never quite seen on weekly TV1.

How It Spread

Reaction hit critically online. r/SquaredCircle threads on Reddit obsessively re-quoted "It's a dilapidated boat!" and other lines from the match, and a novelty Twitter account roleplaying as the boat itself, listed with a location of "Cameron, NC," was set up on July 6th, 20164. Following the July 5th broadcast, the hashtags #TheFinalDeletion and #BrotherNero trended worldwide on Twitter, and Jeff Hardy briefly changed his own Twitter handle to "#BrotherNero DELETED" after losing the match5. Wrestlers including Chris Jericho and the Young Bucks' Nick Jackson publicly praised the reinvention on social media 67.

After Matt Hardy left TNA (later Impact Wrestling), a public legal fight broke out over ownership of the "Broken" gimmick, and when the Hardys returned to WWE at WrestleMania 33 on April 2nd, 2017, they were initially restricted to their older Team Extreme personas1. Once Impact relaxed its stance, WWE rebranded the character as "Woken Matt Hardy," debuting after a November 27th, 2017 match against Bray Wyatt during which Matt spasmed in the corner and cried "Delete!"1.

The callbacks kept coming. On March 19th, 2018, WWE aired "The Ultimate Deletion," another cinematic match at the Hardy Compound featuring Wyatt, the dilapidated boat, Senor Benjamin, Jeff Hardy as Brother Nero, and a finish in which Wyatt was pinned and pushed into the "Lake of Reincarnation"8. Reactions were compiled into a Twitter Moments story, Mick Foley tweeted "I HAVE NO IDEA WTF I JUST SAW…BUT I LIKED IT!" to more than 2,200 likes, and Hulk Hogan replied with a simple "I'm deleted"8.

How to Use This Meme

Fans typically invoke the meme by yelling "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!" in Matt Hardy's exaggerated English accent, by calling any brother figure "Brother Nero," or by labeling anything old or broken "OBSOLETE" or "a dilapidated boat." It is common to pair the phrases with clips from the Final Deletion or Ultimate Deletion matches when reacting to something absurd online3.

Frequently Asked Questions