Josh Barnett has only wrestled one match in AEW, facing Claudio Castagnoli at AEW WrestleDream 2023 on the Zero Hour pre-show.
Though Barnett has had limited time in AEW, he works with AEW talent at his Bloodsport events, facing MVP in November 2023, and has ideas from the company.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour, Ariel noted that wrestling is hot right now with WWE Raw moving to Netflix.
Barnett replied, "It is, but I think AEW needs to consolidate a bit in that…if they have some certain shows that are not their main shows, look at how to build some of these shows, even Zero Hour, that stuff, in ways that would be better used maybe, by them, but also don’t look at everything as just, if it’s not winning yet, get rid of it. I can understand that, but I want to see those sort of things for AEW so they have these other ways which they can approach wrestlers, wrestling fans, and they have a pretty substantial roster. It can keep people busy, which is good for them, and it’s just, in this day and age with social media, I’m sure AEW has their reasons for why they cut certain programs, and I’m not acting as if I know why those are, I’m just speculating. But at times, and really quite often, people see somebody, ‘Oh, they cut show X out,’ they just do nothing but throw scorn and negativity and say it was all because they’re sucking or they’re this. That’s the easiest route to take, the easiest route to get someone to pay attention to what you say. In that sense, it’s like creating a potential backlash or negative talking point for something that isn’t necessarily done out of any of the reasons somebody comes up wirh."
Elsewhere during the interview, Barnett commented on his Bloodsport match against Tom Pestock (Baron Corbin in WWE). You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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