WWE and AEW fans are different.
Matt Hardy noticed this during his program with TNT Champion Sammy Guevara in AEW, and spoke about the difference between the two fan-bases during his recent appearance on the AEW Unrestricted podcast.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on this topic with his thoughts.
On AEW’s fan base being different and preferring things to be more realistic with their product: “Something I have learned by following AEW’s audience closely, it’s a very different audience than places I have worked at in the past. Impact’s audience, for instance, they are a lot more accepting of things that are more out of the normal parameters of pro wrestling. They enjoy that stuff a lot more. WWE fans even are a little more into more supernatural stuff. But AEW Dynamite fans, really like the realistic in-ring product of old-school pro wrestling where it stays within the boundaries of reality. I decided to work towards that.”
On noticing the changes in the WWE and AEW fan base when working a program with Sammy Guevara, noting fans demand talent work like they are 25-30 years old: “I realized after we did the thing with Sammy, I had stubbed my toe a couple of times in the program. The audience is being very hard on me. I see a thing here too, the demographic here in AEW is very different from a WWE. The demographic and the feedback I get from performing on AEW compared to WWE is very different. It’s much younger, it’s much more trendy, cool pro wrestling fans. As opposed to WWE, you can tell the audience is older and they are almost more welcoming of legends and veterans who have been around in the past. With AEW, it’s very tough. You have to go out and bust your ass like you’re 25 to 30 every night. They demand that they demand the best.”
Check out the complete interview at Apple.com. H/T to Wrestling Inc for transcribing the above quotes.
