Jeff Jarrett Calls Out Fan Negativity Over AEW’s Grand Slam: Australia Controversy

AEW Grand Slam: Australia was supposed to be a historic moment for All Elite Wrestling, marking the company’s first-ever event in the country. Instead, it became one of the most criticized AEW shows to date, with fans slamming everything from botched seating arrangements to the borrowed, undersized ring that made the production feel far below AEW’s usual standards.

The backlash was immediate, with social media lighting up with complaints from attendees who claimed they were given the wrong seats—some paying thousands for premium spots only to end up in different sections. Others pointed out the noticeably smaller ring, which was borrowed from a local independent promotion instead of AEW shipping in their standard setup.

Despite the widespread criticism, AEW officials have continued to defend the event, with Tony Khan calling it “one of the biggest gates in AEW history.” Dustin Rhodes was one of the first to fire back at the negativity, telling fans on social media to “block and move on.”

Now, Jeff Jarrett is the latest AEW name to push back against the wave of negativity. Speaking on his My World podcast, Jarrett acknowledged the backlash but questioned why so many fans seemed eager to pile on.

“Late last night when I logged in, I kind of saw the dominoes, if you will. But man, it made me sit back and think just how—I don’t want to use the word tribalism or everything’s politicized, but it just feels like—it’s the old Jerry Lawler song, ‘Bad news travels like a wildfire, good news travels slow. They all call me wildfire because everybody knows I’m bad news.’”

Jarrett admitted he saw the discourse surrounding the event but pushed back against the excessive criticism, suggesting that negativity simply spreads faster than positivity.

“It’s like, people jump in and want to hang on. And if you don’t like the size of the ring, that’s okay too, I’m not trying to tell anybody what they can and can’t like. But my goodness, the negativity just continues to grow and grow and grow and grow. Hey, that’s okay too, but I think a lot of people in a weird kind of way—do they get joy out of it? Does it make them happy? Does it make them feel good? I can’t think of a lot of ways, maybe it gives them a shot of internal adrenaline like, ‘Ah, I’m gonna post this and tweet this whether it’s negative or this or that.’”

Jarrett acknowledged that controversy drives online engagement, but he emphasized that he prefers to focus on the international success of wrestling, rather than the backlash.

“I get clicks creates cash and controversy creates cash and that whole mentality, but Conrad, you know me as well as anybody—I’m just such a huge fan of professional wrestling continuing to do big live gates in all of the international markets. Because—no disrespect to Japan or Germany or any of these other markets—but wrestling is really looked at in today’s world economy as a U.S. product and it’s exported around the world. The more success that can happen internationally, I absolutely love it. When you have that kind of crowd, you can choose to forget about any backstory, what you do and you don’t want to believe. But at the end of the day, you just kind of ran through the highlights. No matter how you slice and dice it, there were 14,000 international fans that had a fantastic time, or they sure acted like they had a fantastic time because they were on their feet for the better part of the show.”

Jarrett is essentially arguing that despite all the negativity surrounding Grand Slam: Australia, fans in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves. However, this defense hasn’t silenced critics who continue to highlight the poor event execution, the awkward production setup, and the mounting complaints from attendees who felt shortchanged.

With AEW Grand Slam: Australia now in the books, the debate rages on—was this a major success for AEW internationally, or was the criticism justified? Drop your thoughts in the comments!