AEW World Champion MJF recently appeared on the podcast “Shut Up and Wrestle” with Brian Solomon, where he discussed a variety of topics.
One highlight was his first meeting with “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes, the Undisputed WWE Champion. This encounter took place at a show for Alpha-1 Wrestling, a promotion run by WWE star Ethan Page, after Rhodes claimed that he had made advances toward Page’s sister.
MJF said, “The very first time I met Cody Rhodes was at Alpha-1 in Canada. And he had told the promoter, who may or may not be Ethan Page, that I was hitting on [Page’s] sister, which I wasn’t. Now granted, I wouldn’t put it past me, but I actually wasn’t that time… So Ethan Page walks up to me, he goes, ‘Hey, man, are you f***ing hitting on my sister?’ And I said, ‘Trust me, if I was you would know. She’d be my girlfriend by now.’”
On confronting Rhodes about it:
“And then we got into it a little bit and I was just like, ‘Who told you this?’ And he goes, ‘Cody told me this.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, okay.’ And you know, I had two options. I could just eat it — which, 99.99% of talent in my position at that point at 19 years old, who was an absolute f**king nobody, would have done. Or I could confront this guy who, at the time and also now, was a big f**king deal in the business. So, because I’m an unwell person, I chose the latter. And I walked into his locker room. He had his own locker room at this f**king place. And I didn’t knock on the door. I just opened it and I said, ‘Hey.’ And he’s looking at me in disbelief. He goes, ‘Hey.’ I go, ‘Why the f**k did you tell the booker I’m trying to bang his sister?’”
On Rhodes’ response:
“And he was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I go, ‘Dude, please don’t make me bring Ethan down here. And he’ll collaborate.’ And he starts laughing and he goes, ‘Who are you, man?’ I go, ‘I’m MJF.’ And then we started just shooting the s**t. And from that moment on, I could tell he got a kick out of me. Because he, especially at on the independent level, was probably not used to people talking like that. And he’ll be the first person to tell you, Cody Rhodes loves a good white lie. He says it all the time.”
On getting booked for All In:
“And what ended up happening was only a couple of weeks after that, we were at NEW, Mike Lombardi’s promotion. And he sees me, his eyes bulge out and he goes, ‘I don’t get it.’ I go, ‘What don’t you get?’ He goes, ‘You’re f**king booked everywhere. I guess I’m going to have to watch you tonight.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess you are.’ And after that, we always stayed in touch. And that’s legitimately how I got booked for All In, was just because Cody was so shocked that I was — I had no right to be booked for all the shows I was booked, but I was everywhere.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
