While he insists he wouldn’t actually do it, MJF knows he can have people eating out of the palm of his hand.
“The Salt Of The Earth” recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard and he was asked about the (typically angry) reaction he generates on AEW TV. MJF is one of modern wrestling’s best at getting booed and he says that while he does sometimes embrace it, he does feel like he’s generally misunderstood by the fans.
“It depends. Sometimes [getting booed] offends me because I feel like I’m misunderstood but other times it only feeds me. It satiates this hole I have, and we all have one, because there’s something about being in a room filled with people that you have by the absolute balls. The fact of the matter is people should call me a puppeteer because that’s what I do, I can manipulate anybody into feeling any way I want them to feel—but I would never do that because I’m the ‘Salt Of The Earth’. However—is it nice when you walk into a room and people are roaring and screaming and going absolutely ape? Of course it is, but that’s why I get paid the big bucks.”
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MJF not only has the gift of gab but he is quite the technician in the ring. MJF picked his Double Or Nothing pay-per-view match against Jungle Boy as the one that people should watch just to see how good he is in the squared circle, pointing out that some fans only want to credit him as a gifted speaker.
“Me versus Jungle Boy is quite possibly one of the greatest matches in AEW history. It’s something that people will watch back and it will remind them of the early Eddie [Guerrero] versus Rey [Mysterio] matches or the early Dean Malenko versus [Chris] Jericho matches. That’s how great it was. That’s the match I would point out to people because I always found it laughable when people would go, ‘MJF’s a great promo but I don’t know if he’s a good wrestler.’ That was laughable to me. The reason I wasn’t wrestling every week is because I’m a special attraction, you don’t just throw me out there, all willy-nilly. Those other guys, they need to go out there and wrestle every week because they need to prove their worth.”
“I don’t need to prove my worth, I know how good I am, so when I would read those Tweets, I would belly laugh. I’d [say] ‘these people have no idea.’ And then after the Jungle Boy match, the narrative changed. ‘Oh my God! Not only is MJF one of the greatest promos in the history of the business, he’s actually a really good wrestler too!’ Yeah, no shit. There’s a reason that I’m the youngest and fastest rising star in the history of the business—Tony Khan wasn’t going to put me in the position that he’s given me the opportunity to be in by giving me these big-time matches and giving me this mic time on the show unless he knew I was one of the best in the world. And I am.”
MJF’s match against Jungle Boy can be seen on the full AEW Double Or Nothing event on pay-per-view or the B/R Live app. We also added some more matches from MJF’s career on the independent scene; you can watch the full-length bouts below:
