AEW star Matt Hardy recently spoke on his podcast, “the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including if he thinks AEW is only appealing to their hardcore audience and not enough to the casual audience:
“That’s a positive for AEW without a doubt that the Turner folk are all about the hardcore pro wrestling fan base. The hardcore fan base, they’re gonna tune in each and every week, even if they complain about the show, even if they pretend to hate the show, whatever it may be, they’re gonna tune in because at the end of the day, they love pro wrestling. Those are the fans that you always have to appreciate because they are always going to be there.”
“You know, me, I’m a big advocate, especially after being around for 31 years, I do think to grow the pro wrestling fan base of AEW, I do think we need to appeal to some more casual fans who might not be all about just the wrestling and the five star matches. I think you can garner some fans and gain some fans by having characters that are on a journey that is extremely compelling. I think that is something that is important and that is done in AEW. I’m not acting like it isn’t done. That is done in AEW, but I still think at the end of the day, AEW focuses on giving a great wrestling product when it’s all said and done. I think that’s cool that the people from Warner Media and Turner that they’re leaning into that and that’s what they approve of.”
“It’s gonna be exciting. I’m really excited to see Collision to see if it adds to the excitement around AEW or if it waters it down. That’s going to be interesting. I believe my gut feeling tells me it’s going to add to the excitement because I think it’s going to be two pretty different rosters. The shows are going to look differently. I think we could get to a deal where the shows are going to almost compete against one another. I think there’s times when Raw and SmackDown seem very different and you’re like, ‘Oh sh*t, like SmackDown is better than RAW or RAW is better than SmackDown.’ I think that kind of motivates everyone to work a little harder and be a little better and I think that goes from the in-ring wrestlers, to the people behind creative, and the people booking the show and whatnot. So hopefully we have that effect from Dynamite and Collision.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
