The legal battle between Matt Hardy and Impact wrestling continued on Tuesday night when an executive for the promotion released confidential documents regarding the use of the Broken gimmick.The debate surrounds the use of the Broken gimmick and who owns the rights to it as both parties claim ownership of arguably the best gimmick in professional wrestling.

More shots fired

Impact Wrestling President Ed Nordholm sent PWInsider a detailed breakdown of the communication between his company and Matt Hardy - featuring text messages and a four page exert from Hardy's contract with the company.

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Nordhold noted his opinions on the matter, claiming:

"The position taken by the Hardys is a massive disservice to the contributions of the rest of the creative team at Impact Wrestling".

He would praise the Hardy brothers for their roles in developing the Broken gimmick but also reveal a log of communications between himself and Hardy in an attempt to clarify that it is not his company who is avoiding the issue.

In a log which spanned from March 10th to May 16th, (Which can be read here), Nordholm would show messages between himself and Hardy where both parties seemed eager to find a suitable solution to the issue.

However it would also document a period of silence between the two in which it appears the issue soured.

Nordholm also released extracts of Hardy's contract which related to the case and stated that Impact owned the intellectual property.

In a move that has been seen as the matter turning nasty, Nordholm's actions drew responses from both Matt Hardy and his wife Reby Hardy.

Reby was the first to respond in a series of tweets where she would refer to TNA as "cute" for feeling the need to prove themselves to randoms on the internet, and also accuse the company of breaking confidentiality.

Reby also hinted at "releasing the phone calls" in her final tweet to end a rant which showed just how outraged she was by Impact's latest move.

Matt however needed just one tweet to react to the document release:

The issue between Impact and Hardy is clearly not going away and Tuesday's development will surely leave fans questioning just what happened between one half of the current RAW Tag Team Champions, and his former employers.

Speaking to the WWE

Norholm's communication log may have referenced how he and Hardy attempted to resolve the issue themselves, but it also featured the WWE.

The log claimed that on the 18th of April, WWE were contacted regarding internet rumours that the company wanted to use the Broken gimmick on their programming.

It would also claim that two days later, the WWE responded and said that there "is no interest on our end".

This was another issue addressed by Reby Hardy's Twitter rant.

It looks like the WWE may not have interest in the Broken gimmick after all, but it wouldn't come as a shock to anyone if they were claiming this to avoid being embroiled in a legal battle.

Once the court case is settled and if the Hardy's do in fact earn the freedom to utilise the gimmick, it will be interesting to see if it ever makes it onto the TV screens of WWE.