Matt Hardy thinks AEW’s approach to no-selling has gone past moderation, and he named Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland and the Young Bucks while making the point.
He was asked about it on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy after a clip from All In circulated online.
“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.”
He said the objection is not to no-selling as a concept.
“There are acts in wrestling who have gotten over from no-selling. No-selling is nothing new. It has been part of wrestling.”
His definition of the problem is narrower than the word usually covers.
“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.”
The specific spot he raised involved the Young Bucks and a 450 splash.
“Somebody got hit. 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.”
He was more forgiving about the circumstances than the spot.
“Sometimes too, if you have those multi-man matches, you just try and space things out as much.”
He said the style is what the business is now.
“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.”
He was complimentary about Ospreay throughout while describing him as the clearest example of it.
“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.”
Hardy also turned the argument on himself, saying advice he brushed off years ago now looks correct and that he would tell his younger self to do considerably less.
He is the latest in a long line of veterans to raise the subject this year. The Undertaker said this month that the current roster is the greatest collection of athletes the business has produced but that many of them forget storytelling, and warned about what he calls flippy doos. Kevin Nash said what is missing is the sense that two people are having a fight. AJ Styles said his 19-year-old son is taking risks he does not need to take.
Cody Rhodes, the only current full-time wrestler to answer it, pushed back.
“You can tell sometimes when some of these guys tell them, hey, do less, you can tell it’s because they could never do that,” Rhodes said. “So there’s somewhere in the middle, is the reality.”
The 450 spot he describes came from All In, where the Young Bucks challenged for the AEW World Tag Team Championship against Adam Copeland and Christian Cage at Wembley on Sunday. The Bucks have worked a fast, high-volume style since their independent days and are among the wrestlers most often named when this argument comes up, though they have also been AEW executive vice presidents for most of the company’s existence and had a hand in setting its in-ring direction.
Hardy is 51 and works for TNA. He was with AEW between 2020 and 2023, which covers the period he is describing.
