MJF is often viewed as a wrestling prodigy, and he continues to thrive in All Elite Wrestling.
Still, despite his young age, MJF is a throwback in every sense of the word. In an interview with Anthony Sulla-Heffinger of Yahoo! Sports, MJF explained that he admires classic wrestling and abhors the style that his peers in AEW are known for.
“When I first got into the industry, I was already a student of the game,” said MJF. “I enjoyed watching the [Nick] Bockwinkels, the [Ric] Flairs, the Tullys [Blanchard] — who I now get to work with every week — do their thing. The smartest thing about them, contrary to what you see now stylistically in professional wrestling, was that they didn’t want to get hit, they didn’t want to mess their bodies up.
“When I watch professional wrestling on AEW Dynamite, I cringe, I want to puke in my mouth a little bit, because I see these guys and they are murdering themselves. They are jumping from the top rope to the floor, they are doing the loopy loops, the twisty turns, the flippity do-das, and they are killing themselves. Some of these people who are younger than me, and I’m already wildly young, might not be able to walk anymore when they get to my age.”
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It’s fair to say that MJF isn’t a high-flyer, so that concern doesn’t apply to him the same way it might to other wrestlers who use breathtaking offensive maneuvers.
Likewise, in the same interview, MJF explained that he doesn’t wrestle every single week to protect the significance of his matches.
“Why am I going to try and wrestle every week when I can save my body and then when I do wrestle, it’s more of a main attraction because people want to see it so bad,” said MJF. “There was a guy in the UFC, his name is Cowboy Cerrone, and the guy would be on almost every single card, his fight camps would be month to two months. Sure, he would win, but his winner’s purse would be so small because he made himself so accessible.
“Me, I’m a top guy, I’m a superstar, I’m not going to wrestle every week because I want the care for my matches from a fan’s standpoint to be that much larger.”
MJF will be in action this Wednesday on AEW Dynamite. As the leader of The Pinnacle, he’ll be at the forefront of the buzzworthy Blood & Guts Match.
