Matt Hardy thinks AEW has a no-selling problem, and he isn’t being vague about who he sees doing it. Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland and the Young Bucks all came up as Hardy explained why he thinks the company sometimes takes the style too far.
While speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Hardy was asked about it after a Young Bucks spot from All In started making the rounds online. He made it clear that the Bucks aren’t the only ones he sees doing it.
“There’s a lot of that at AEW, just as it is anyway. The Bucks were a couple of guys that started kind of working a different style, where you’ll pick something up and you’ll no-sell or whatever else, and I think it’s fine to do that in moderation. But I just think sometimes at AEW it happens too much. Because then you have Ospreay doing it. Sometimes you have Swerve doing it. Sometimes you just have other guys doing it. It is kind of part of the style, but sometimes it’s a little much.”
Hardy isn’t against no-selling altogether. He knows that’s been part of wrestling forever and has even helped certain wrestlers get over.
“There are acts in wrestling who have gotten over from no-selling. No-selling is nothing new. It has been part of wrestling.”
His problem is when someone takes something huge and immediately carries on like it never happened. That brought him back to the All In spot involving the Young Bucks. Hardy recalled one of the Bucks taking a 450 splash and then getting right back up for a superkick.
“Sometimes it’s not selling if someone takes an outrageously big move and there’s no, they don’t get hurt by it at all. It has no effect on them, zero effect. That’s what I’m saying. Someone did a 450, and then they flopped over, and then they got hit with a 450, and then he rolled over and came up and did a superkick right after it, almost immediately after getting hit. I saw a lot of people were critical of that.”
Hardy did give them some room considering how quickly things have to move in multi-man matches. Ospreay might be the clearest example of Hardy’s larger point. He likes what Ospreay does, but sometimes thinks there’s so much movement that selling gets lost along the way.
“Sometimes too, if you have those multi-man matches, you just try and space things out as much. Will Ospreay is like that as well. He’s a guy who does go, go, go, go, go, and a lot of times there’s more action and movement than there is selling, and it just kind of is what it is at the end of the day.”
Matt Hardy knows this is part of wrestling in 2026. He just thinks it works better when wrestlers don’t constantly reach for it.
“It’s a part of the style of the business in the year 2026. No doubt about it. It is what it is. I just think if you utilize it in moderation, it’s okay.”
So Hardy isn’t asking AEW to suddenly get rid of the fast, athletic wrestling that helped define the company. He just thinks there’s a big difference between occasionally popping up from a move for effect and making a 450 splash look like it barely hurt.
What do you make of Matt Hardy saying AEW takes no-selling too far? Let us know in the comments.
