Jeff Hardy’s future in WWE has been a hot topic among the Internet wrestling community after pwinsider.com reported earlier this week that Hardy’s contract was expiring in the next two-to-four months and he had yet to accept WWE’s offer for a new deal.

According to the report, WWE wants to sign Hardy to a long-term contract. When he was not receptive to such a deal, the company then offered him a one-year contract with the hope of working out a longer deal later, but he has not agreed to that either.

If the report is accurate (pwinsider.com has a pretty good track record), it’s anybody’s guess as to what it all means. Hardy in real life is a lot like his wrestling persona in that he is something of an enigma.

Perhaps Hardy is burnt out on wrestling and needs to get away from it for a while. He certainly has been on an emotional roller coaster over the past year, as he received the biggest push of his career and finally won the WWE title, but he also was suspended for his second violation of WWE’s Wellness Policy and lost all of his possessions as well as his dog in a fire.

Unlike his brother Matt, Jeff Hardy does not seem to be consumed by wrestling. In an interview with me last year, Hardy said that he had lost his passion for the business when he left WWE in 2003. “It becomes a job and you do it so much and things get old,” he told me. Hardy said that his big singles push was largely responsible for him regaining his passion, but he also said that “there’s a lot of pressure and stress that comes with [it].”

WWE has done such a tremendous job of branding its name over the years that no one star is bigger than the company, but it still would be a blow to lose Hardy. He is incredibly popular with teenage girls and kids, and despite that fact, there hasn’t been a backlash among male fans. With Triple H having moved over to Raw in the draft, Hardy is currently slotted as Smackdown’s No. 2 babyface behind The Undertaker.

posted by Kevin Eck on weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestlin...