Matt Hardy became the TNA World Heavyweight Champion at Bound For Glory 2015. Hardy pinned Drew Galloway (f.k.a Drew McIntyre in WWE) to win the title, so former champion Ethan Carter III wasn’t even involved in the finish.
Matt Hardy was then banned from TNA Impact Wrestling after EC3 filed an injunction against Hardy. Hardy then went on to relinquish the TNA World Title, and gave the reason that TNA fans deserve a World Champion on TV.
The real reason behind this was that TNA already taped the post-Bound For Glory episodes of Impact Wrestling. TNA announced a tournament to crown the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. The matches for this tournament were taped during the summer and according to reports, Bobby Lashley was crowned the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. This would be Bobby Lashley’s 3rd reign as TNA World Heavyweight Champion.
The final 4 wrestlers in the tournament would turn out to be Hardy, EC3, Lashley and Eric Young.
