Jeff Hardy, prior to his shock release from WWE, was slated to have a run in NXT 2.0.

Jeff Hardy was released by WWE on December 9 after reportedly refusing to go to rehab, which came as a surprise to many.

The decision to release Hardy was made by WWE after he had to be removed from the middle of a match at a live event, subsequently being sent home from the road.

This came at a pretty bad time for WWE, as it has emerged that the company had some pretty big plans for the former WWE Champion.

Fightful Select is reporting that Jeff Hardy was originally slated for a run in NXT to serve as the 'Shaman' for MSK.

However, when Hardy was released by WWE, the decision was made to put Raw Tag Team Champion Riddle in that role instead.

Hardy was released by WWE in December, and it left the company scrambling, as Jeff Hardy was originally planned to be the "Shaman" for MSK.

The report suggests that Hardy had already taped "numerous segments" with MSK that would have aired on NXT 2.0.

Riddle then had to rush to film the segments now that he was going to replace the former WWE Champion.

At NXT New Year's Evil, which will air live on the USA Network tonight, Riddle and MSK will team up to take on WALTER, Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel.

As of right now, there is no word on whether or not Jeff Hardy would have been in the match instead of Riddle, had he not been released by the company.

Since then, Riddle has joined MSK in a match with Imperium, but we haven't heard if the original plan with Hardy called for that to happen as well.