Nattie Neidhart never meant to start a war between AJ Styles and Arik Cannon over Avery Styles. Now that her praise for AJ’s son has helped fuel days of arguments about “paying your dues,” she’s making it clear she wishes the entire situation had been handled very differently.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Nattie addressed the controversy surrounding Avery, which exploded after she praised his GCW match with Marcus Mathers. Cannon subsequently accused Avery of avoiding setup and teardown work at the show, leading to a very public back-and-forth with AJ Styles.
Nattie isn’t picking a side. She said AJ, Cannon and everyone else involved is entitled to feel however they want, but she believes problems between people in wrestling should be discussed privately rather than fought out on Twitter.
“Everybody is allowed to feel how they want to feel. That’s a part of life. So everyone feels this way, AJ feels this way, the promoter feels this way. I’m just big on communication. For example, if I have an issue with Nic Nemeth, I’d talk to Nemeth politely in private. I think communication is really important. It goes back to us being able to talk like adults.”
And after watching the argument explode online, Nattie had a pretty clear message about Twitter wars.
“I will say that in my deepest, darkest, hardest moments, I would never go on a Twitter rant. This is coming from my experience. You can’t on Twitter because everyone has an opinion, and it can be explosive. I think the most mature way for everyone to handle stuff, especially if you have a problem with someone directly, is, ‘Hey, this is how I feel. I want to pass this message along.’”
That’s particularly notable considering how ugly the Avery Styles debate became. Cannon accused Avery of disappearing into the locker room instead of helping with chairs at a GCW event in Minneapolis. AJ fired back that his son was booked to wrestle, not work ring crew, and eventually called Cannon a “jealous douche.”
Cannon then started producing examples of established wrestling names pitching in, including Jimmy Hart helping with chairs and Cody Rhodes sweeping broken glass from a ring during his independent run.
AJ responded with an example of his own. After speaking with former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky, Styles said ROH had a dedicated ring crew during his time there, meaning he never had to set up or tear down the ring—or even the chairs.
Through all of that, Nattie says her original intention was much simpler. She saw two young wrestlers impress her and wanted to give them some recognition.
“All I did—and I do feel bad because I didn’t mean to cause this controversy—all I was trying to do was send a positive message. Going to the GCW show and being impressed by Marcus Mathers vs. Avery Styles. I had invited Avery to the Dungeon as well. He’s only had a handful of matches. He’s a baby to the industry. I don’t want to bring more life to the situation. I watched the match, TJ watched the match, and they impressed me so much. It was just two young men working on their craft. All I said was I was impressed by their work.”
Nattie wanted to compliment Avery Styles and Marcus Mathers. Instead, her post became part of a much bigger argument over wrestling etiquette, privilege and what “paying your dues” is supposed to look like in 2026. Now she’d rather everyone involved stop fighting about it publicly and simply talk to each other.
Do you agree with Nattie that AJ Styles and Arik Cannon should have handled their disagreement privately instead of turning it into a Twitter war? Let us know in the comments.
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