Matt Hardy feels that no-selling is fine in moderation but sometimes “happens too much” in AEW
During his podcast, Matt Hardy was asked about a video clip from All In: Texas 2025 involving Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland and The Young Bucks. The segment was criticized by some fans for its lack of selling until the very end of the sequence.
Ospreay, Swerve, and The Bucks going CRAZY.#AEWAllInTexas
— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) July 12, 2025
Here is what Matt had to say about “no-selling” in wrestling…
“I mean, there’s a lot of that at AEW, just as it is anyway. The Bucks were a couple of the guys that started kind of working a different style where, you’ll pick something 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 know, you have [Will] Ospreay doing it. Sometimes you have Swerve [Strickland] doing it. Sometimes you just have other guys are just doing it.”
Matt continued…
“It’s one thing if there’s one act or a couple acts that are doing it, and it’s specifically dedicated to that act kind of doing that bit, but just it happens so much in AEW, and Will Ospreay is like that as well. He’s a guy who does go, go, go, and, you know, 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.”
Later in the discussion, Matt stated the following…
“Sometimes I think fans look at it as excessive more than anything else. As I say this, I don’t hate that. I don’t hate it at all, but I do think selling is a very integral and important part of pro wrestling that needs to happen.
[So, is it not selling when they collapse due to exhaustion?] No. What I’m saying is sometimes it’s not selling if someone takes an outrageously big move and they don’t get hurt by it at all. It has no effect on them. Zero effect.
That’s what I’m saying. There are acts in wrestling who have gotten over from no-selling. I mean, no-selling is nothing new. It has been part of wrestling. It depends on what the size is.”