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The Matt Hardy vs. Bray Wyatt Ultimate Deletion match was a huge hit in terms of engaging the audience via social media. The match was getting hundreds of thousands of tweets following Raw and trended #1 worldwide and in a number of major cities for hours after Raw.
Michael Hayes was listed as the Producer of the match. Jeremy Borash was obviously involved as well.
There was quite a bit of footage that Rebecca Hardy had filmed and edited herself that was used for Ultimate Deletion as well as original music she composed as well.
For those who have asked why Michael Cole apologized for the match before it aired on Raw, your guess is as good as mine. A cynic might say it was a message from WWE undercutting something they didn't create. I thought it was a poor idea personally, as it set the audience up to go in expecting something terrible, which it wasn't. It certainly was completely different (unless you had seen this type of material in TNA) but it wasn't terrible. The general consensus among readers we heard from overnight was that if you had never seen this type of thing before, you either loved the hell out of it or didn't see the point. There was no in between. If you were aware of the Impact material, you probably expected something a little more insane.
The real success of the match (and in some ways, the Matt Hardy character) will be measured by the ratings from last night's show, specifically the numbers for hour three. We'll know the overnight number late this afternoon.
Jeff Hardy did pop up for a brief cameo as Brother Nero. Hardy has been at the WWE Performance Center working out this week.
Interestingly, WWE did not air the match live at Raw last night in Dallas. They instead went to several dark segments to close the event.
Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy were both backstage at Raw in Dallas.
WWE released the following clips from the bout:
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