MJF has done a lot of things not even most veteran pro wrestlers have done at the age of only 24. He’s received international exposure thanks to countless places he’s worked, and now he has a prime position on AEW programming working alongside Chris Jericho as a member of the Inner Circle.
Some of these things are possible thanks to MLW, a promotion he made a big mark in prior to arriving in AEW. On an episode of Talk Is Jericho, MLW Owner and former member of the WWE creative team Court Bauer talked about MJF and how he almost ended up in NXT.
Bauer went on to say that WWE and MLW were once much closer and they almost formed a partnership that would have seen talent trades. This partnership would have seen MJF arrive in NXT back in 2018. Things didn’t wind up working out, but WWE officials were surprised by how polished MJF was for being so young.
“At one point, we were doing some business with WWE in 2018 – we were going to. We were fairly friendly I guess you could say, and there was talk about MJF possibly doing a crossover thing with them. We were taping, primarily at the time, out of Orlando, and they were – NXT, of course, is down the road. So they start asking questions about him, and one of the things they asked was, ‘So he’s what, 26, 28, 29?’ I’m like, ‘No dude, he’s 21.’ They’re like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘Does he look that way, or just the experience? What is it,’ and I remember telling MJF that. He’s like, ‘I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know either.’ He has certain qualities you just don’t see in a lot of wrestling. A lot of wrestling, I think, as JR would say, ‘Do you have the sizzle there or what?’ And he kind of blends a lot of those qualities. Very much a throwback, but he doesn’t think he’s a throwback. He just takes those positive attributes and incorporates it into a modern character that works.”
MJF has always impressed people for being so talented at such a young age. That talent has opened a lot of doors for him, and it could have found him working for NXT. Whatever the direction is, MJF is pretty sure things worked out okay for him.
h/t to Wrestling Inc for the quote.
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