I recall being told that it doesn't, and that it is the aqueous printers that require coating.
You were told wrong.
The ink, be it solvent, aqueous, or a finger dipped in mayonnaise [no, gag, Miracle Whip please], is only on a coating that's on the canvas. This coating has about zero abrasion resistance.
That's the reason you always, as in always, want to coat a print on canvas. Not to preserve the over all quality of the print but to prevent inadvertently grinding off the printable coating and hence the printing itself should the print rub up against something.
If you do a gallery wrap, which is almost always in this shop, the edges and particularly the corners of the print where it is wrapped around the stretchers are incredibly delicate and will completely wear away with the slightest contact with anything more abrasive than itself. Which is to say almost anything, especially a cutting mat.