Pro wrestling is hot right now.
There’s no doubt about it.
But it’s not as hot as the business was during the boom period known as the WWE Attitude Era.
Matt Hardy expressed this opinion on the latest installment of his podcast, “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.”
“I don’t think wrestling is hotter now than it was in the late 90s, but I do think wrestling has a much more sprawling impact around the globe, and I think it has the chance and ability to become hotter now than it was back then,” Hardy said. “I think that’s where we’re at right now. I think many more people consume pro wrestling in this day and age, in so many different ways, and you can’t keep those numbers. But back then, it was just a little bit hotter at that time because it was truly a part of pop culture.”
Hardy continued, “That is something is really hard to do. Now it’s much more of a niche industry, as most everything is. There’s so many things out there. There’s so much entertainment to choose from. Everything is almost niche and has a very certain audience. That’s why I am a huge advocate of saying, ‘We have to appeal to more casual fans.’ I think casual fans are the way to grow pro wrestling in the big scheme of things. I mean, the people that are wrestling fans, they’re gonna tune in and they’re gonna watch wrestling because they love it. They can complain and they can bitch, they can moan, but they’re gonna tune in and they’re gonna watch it because they love pro wrestling and they have to get their fix. But I think we need to continue to try and build people that are crossover stars that appeal to the casual audience, especially speaking about AEW. WWE, obviously they’re taking some great steps in the way they’re doing the thing with Logan Paul, the way they’re doing stuff with Bad Bunny because that does cross over and they get casual fans to tune in. I think they have a really successful formula going on.”
Check out the complete episode of the podcast at Apple.com. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
