Summary

TNA Wrestling's Matt Hardy used his podcast to weigh in on a topic that's been festering in wrestling for years: tribalism between fan bases. Hardy's take was blunt. He doesn't think the level of division in wrestling right now is normal, and he lays much of the blame at the feet of social media.

He called out both sides of the WWE vs. AEW divide, the fans who declare WWE irredeemably evil and those who insist AEW is on the verge of collapse. His argument is that social media allows both camps to find each other, reinforce their worst instincts, and then go to war. The result is noise that drowns out civil discussion.

Hardy also drew a comparison to the broader political and cultural landscape in America, suggesting wrestling's fan wars are a symptom of a larger problem with how people consume and react to opinion online.

Quote from Matt Hardy

Speaking on his podcast, Hardy said:

"I think it is very high, yeah. I don't think this is a normal societal, tribalistic thing, you know what I mean? I don't think this is normal for pro wrestling. I do think it's high."

Hardy went on to say:

"I've said this before, in a Matt Fact, about how I think social media may become an overall net negative. People get so caught up in these echo chambers of their own stuff, and then they buy into it, and they believe it. Social media has taken on this insane life of its own, and in pro wrestling it has done that as well. The people who live and die by 'WWE is the devil, it's terrible,' or that 'AEW is going to be out of business and they suck and they're the worst' — they hear this from other people who agree with it, and then they just build up each other's confidence and continue to go at it. Then these forces battle. In a lot of ways, that's what's happening in society and America too, you know what I mean? Just to keep people at each other's throats. It's a problem for a lot of things — this conflict of opinion. What happened to civility? What happened to when someone could just throw out an opinion and you go, 'Well, I don't agree with you. My opinion is this, but okay — you're entitled to your opinion.'"

Why Hardy's View on This Carries Weight

Hardy is one of the few active wrestlers who has spent significant time across multiple major promotions, including WWE, AEW, and now TNA. That kind of cross-promotional career gives him a vantage point that most performers don't have. He's not speaking as a partisan for any single company.

His comments also tap into something that wrestling promotions and talent have increasingly had to reckon with: the online conversation around wrestling has become so polarised that it shapes perception of actual product quality. Fans dismissing an entire promotion out of hand is not a new phenomenon, but the amplification effect of social media has made those voices louder and more organised.

Sources

As reported by NoDQ.