AEW World Champion MJF spoke with Justin Barrasso for Undisputed about various topics, including competing in his final indie show in the U.S. for the time being at Beyond Wrestling this weekend.
MJF said, “I’m going to announce that this is probably the last American independent match I’m going to have for an extraordinarily long time. I need to focus on AEW. I took my eyes off the ball for a millisecond, and a dude who is like 145-f***ing-pounds soaking wet beat me. That can’t happen. I don’t care that he hit me in the nuts and spammed his finisher on me four times, and Aubrey Edwards, who is a complete liar, made a fast count. But glass half full, I’m now a three-time champion at the age of 30.”
On working the Beyond Wrestling show:
“Beyond was one of the first independent circuits that really took a chance on me. That’s where I could talk on the microphone before my matches, and it’s where I wrestled big matches with top names at the time on the independent circuit. Now I want to come in and see what Bobby Orlando is all about. I’m excited to test this kid, I’m excited to get more eyeballs on him and on Beyond, and that’s naturally what is going to happen because I am the biggest f***ing draw in this business. I’m looking forward to it, and hopefully he gets a contract out of it.”
On being trained at Create-A-Pro:
“There is no better professional wrestling school than Create A Pro. There just isn’t. I believe that wholeheartedly. And I see that they pump a lot of money into the [WWE] Performance Center, and there are a lot of different options for schools other than CAP, but in my opinion, between Pat Buck and Brian Myers, you’re just not getting better training. Pat’s showing you the old school s**t and building you from the ground up, perfecting your basics. Hawkins [Myers] is a guy who has worked in every major company, and he’s also a guy who’s done PWG and your local indie. He just has the brain for it, and so does Pat.”
On Bobby Orlando:
“I look at a guy like Bobby Orlando, who is an oddball and a weirdo, but this cat is driven. That’s the one thing we share in common. When I was on the indies, I used to get in my car and name a state, because I drove to it. Name an amount of money I didn’t make wrestling on those shows, and I didn’t make it. Name a number of fans who were barely in that crowd, I wrestled in front of them. I wrestled every Wednesday at Dojo Wars in front of like eight people on a good day in Blackwood, New Jersey, then on a Thursday I’d get in my car and drive to this place called Sanctuary in Pennsylvania or this promotion called XWA. If I wasn’t doing Dojo Wars, I’d drive all the way out to Dayton, Ohio to wrestle at Rockstar Pro. Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, whether it was AIW, AAW, Beyond, Limitless–and the list goes on–I was booked. I see what Bobby’s doing. I see how hard he’s working, I see how driven he is. I saw the promo he cut on me online. I can’t help but f***ing respect that. What I respect more than anything in this business is grind. I wasn’t supposed to make it. I’m not well over six-feet tall, I’m not a juiced-up bodybuilder. I didn’t come from the NFL or the NBA. I’m just a great professional wrestler. If you look through the annals of our sport, that used to not even get you a look. I’m watching what they’re doing over there in NXT, and they’re kind of going back to that formula with the former athletes–but they keep finding better luck utilizing guys that actually love this business and guys who are actually wrestlers first. And I look at a guy like Bobby Orlando–and I’m constantly hearing his name, whether I want to or not–because he’s been killing it on the indies.”
