Jeff Hardy's Likely Singles Push Spells Doom for Broken Gimmick in WWE

The Hardy Boyz seem to be on the verge of being broken, but not in the way hardcore fans anticipated.

Despite WWE continuing to entertain its most niche, hardcore contingent—even through "broken" references from both Matt and Jeff Hardy—Monday's 15-man Battle Royal ended with the familiar scene of Jeff rising to the occasion while Matt fell by the wayside.

Matt Hardy was the story of TNA in 2016. Impact Wrestling reinvented itself and built its entire promotion around Matt's unique antics of the supernatural. The Broken Universe has had plenty of cache on WWE's main roster, even as the Hardys battle Ed Nordholm and TNA/GFW over who owns the gimmick, per Justin Barrasso of SI.com.

Chants of "delete" and veiled references to catchphrases adjacent to the Broken Universe have provided hope that maybe Broken Brilliance can somehow manifest itself in WWE. But as Jeff Hardy prepares to face off against The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship on Monday's Raw, WWE may have moved on from what could have been a promising incarnation of the Broken Hardys.

It seemed like only a matter of time before WWE pulled the trigger on a some type of singles run for Jeff Hardy. The novelty of the Hardy Boyz will only last so long, and Jeff Hardy has proved to have a world championship ceiling as a singles star, even while dealing with well-documented substance-abuse issues.

With Jeff Hardy clean and sober for years, a singles run would be more than just a nostalgia act. Should his body hold up, Hardy could turn back the clock as a the type of universally celebrated top babyface that tends to evade WWE.

And while a singles run is good news for Jeff, it could spell doom for Matt. Though talented, perhaps even a career overachiever, Matt Hardy's ceiling as a singles star in WWE has always been limited. Even when it seemed the promotion was behind him, like when he returned by popular demand to feud with Edge, Matt's path to a WWE world championship was always derailed at some point.

The only saving grace of a potential Jeff Hardy singles run is the same Hardy vs. Hardy feud that led to both characters becoming broken in TNA. But as red tape continues to delay even direct references to the gimmick on television, its possible WWE has washed its hands of the Broken Hardys and is instead more likely to break them up.

Alfred Konuwa is a Featured Columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report and Forbes. Like him on Facebook.