Some fans have claimed that Jeff Hardy was meant to be in the original TNA Video Game, but was pulled at the last minute when he signed for the WWE in 2006.
We’re here to set things straight, and remove any false information that may be out there about Hardy’s video game appearance. We have to look back at the debut of the TNA video game and see when the game was announced, and when it was actually released.
Jeff Hardy Was Announced For TNA Impact
When Midway signed a deal for the exclusive rights to create Total Nonstop Action wrestling video games, they released a promotional image of three of the top young stars in TNA.
On November 07, 2005, the company published a press release, revealing their intentions to release video games based on the TNA brand including some of their biggest stars, name dropping Raven, Jeff Jarrett, Monty Brown, Rhino, Christopher Daniels, Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles and more later on in the statement.
“Midway Games Inc. (NYSE:MWY), a leading interactive entertainment software publisher and developer, today announced that it has signed an exclusive worldwide, multi-year agreement with TNA Entertainment to publish videogames based on Total Nonstop Action Wrestling(TM). Under the terms of the agreement, Midway has the rights to develop and publish games for the console, handheld and PC platforms. The first TNA Wrestling(TM) product is scheduled to ship in 2007 for current generation game systems.”
With this press release, Midway Games also released a promotional render of what a TNA Video Game could look like. It was tentatively named “TNA Impact” (which would go on to be the name of their debut outing), and featured a render of three of TNA’s biggest young wrestlers – Monty Brown, AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy.
He Left TNA Before The Game Was Released
However, by the time TNA Impact was released on Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2008, two of those three wrestlers were not included. Monty Brown had left to sign for the WWE in 2006, before retiring a year later in the most tragic circumstance (which you can read about here).
Meanwhile, Jeff Hardy only signed for TNA in 2003 after being fired by the WWE due to a drug addiction. After a three-year run with the company, he was released after “no-showing” multiple events, amid a return to the WWE later that year.
Neither Monty Brown nor Jeff Hardy was included in the debut TNA video game. Other stars who had signed in the meantime, like Kurt Angle, the Dudleys and Christian Cage, were added into the game as some of their biggest stars, so they did not miss out on the lack of Jeff Hardy.
However, there were rumors that Hardy was in the code for TNA Impact. In multiple online forums, it is claimed that Hardy was set to be included, only being pulled at the last minute after re-signing for the WWE.
While parts of his character likely survived in the code of the game, he left two-years before the TNA game released – there is no way anything close to a fully-working Jeff Hardy model is part of the innards of the video game.
Considering he was a key part of the WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007 game, there is no way that the WWE would have allowed Jeff Hardy to be part of two wrestling games at the same times – Cody Rhodes is the last person to do that, being included in WWE 2K23 and AEW: Fight Forever, but that was a very special circumstance.
While Jeff Hardy isn’t in TNA Impact, he did make the cut for the AEW: Fight Forever video game, making him just one of three men to appear in video games for WWE, AEW and TNA.
The other two men are Sting and Christian Cage, who signed for AEW in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Jeff Hardy’s Last Match In TNA
Jeff Hardy wrestled his last match in TNA on the January 10, 2017 episode of TNA Impact.
Wrestling under the name Brother Nero (he had lost the rights to the Hardy name in a match against his brother Matt), the former WWE Champion wrestled against TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley in a world title match to end the show.
This was part of what Matt Hardy called their “Expedition of Gold”. It saw the brothers would teleport to different promotions and win that promotions’ tag team championship gold. They were successful in promotions like TNA, ROH and MCW, winning tag team gold all over the country.
Click here to continue reading about Jeff Hardy’s last TNA match.