Last week, WWE superstar Jeff Hardy was released by the company. It was reported that Jeff Hardy was offered help and rehab and that Hardy refused. In his final appearance with the company during a WWE Live Event, Hardy rolled off the ring and exited the stadium through the crowd, past security. He was then sent home by WWE, and has been released from his contract since then.
Visual Concepts has been very careful in who they are using to represent the game in their trailer videos, opting to use superstars with contracts that won't be expiring soon. Because of this, only 45 superstars have been confirmed so far, including Hardy. This goes to show that WWE had a lot of plans yet in store for the Charismatic Enigma, as he appeared in the Hit List Trailer just a month ago. This essentially confirmed that Jeff Hardy will be part of the WWE 2K22 roster.
But with Jeff Hardy now gone, what does it mean for the WWE 2K22 roster? Will he be removed? Will he be retained?
This isn't the first time that someone's in-game model has already been produced by Visual Concepts, only for the person to be released by WWE. In fact, Frightful Select reported that some released superstars have already done several MoCap sessions with Visual Concepts before they got released. So, Visual Concepts is kind of used to this situation already.
However, what's new to Visual Concepts is for one of their already revealed characters to be released. Jeff Hardy has already appeared in one of their trailers, and is due to appear in the finished game.
In previous WWE games, however, there have been instances where superstars who were no longer working for the company featured in the game. One such example is Alicia Fox, who was already regarded as a WWE Legend by the time WWE 2K20 was released in October 2019. Granted, Fox back then was still working with the company under the Legends Program. But it goes to show that not being an active competitor isn't always reason enough to remove you from the roster. Whether or not this would apply to Jeff Hardy is still up in the air.
Still, Hardy's departure has quickly resulted in rumors that he's headed to competitor AEW. If he does end up working for Tony Khan, then that would definitely mean he'll get removed from WWE 2K22‘s roster. Not only would WWE want a wrestler from a competing promotion be present in their game, there might even be legal repercussions for portraying a roster already in contract with another promotion.
In summary, things aren't looking good for WWE 2K22, as its already thin roster could potentially lose one of the most well-loved wrestlers. Whatever happens, we wish that Jeff Hardy could remain healthy and continue to compete for as long as his body allows him.
Nevertheless, while Hardy would be the first WWE 2K22 wrestler to be revealed and then released, we're pretty sure that he won't be the last. March 2022 can't come soon enough so that we can finally get our hands on the final build of the game before Nick Khan releases even more of our favorite superstars. If ever, at least there will still be the AEW game to look forward to, so long as that's where they are headed to next after their WWE careers.
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