Eric Bischoff has spoken of his admiration for MJF, claiming the AEW star is one of the best heels in the industry right now.
MJF made his spectacular return to AEW on September 4th at AEW All Out, returning as the masked Joker to win the Casino ladder match before revealing it was himself under the mask later in the night.
Fans hadn’t seen MJF on AEW television since the June 1st edition of AEW Dynamite when he grabbed a live mic and verbally assaulted everyone and everything associated with the company. Since then, rumours continued to persist that MJF was on his way out of the company.
AEW’s top homegrown star has many admirers for his work as a heel, one of whom is WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff. Speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff had the following to say when asked which wrestlers he would choose if he were to start a wrestling company today:
“I don’t know, man, it’s too hard to pick talent like that. I mean, right off the bat, again, I’ve been saying this for a long time, I think MJF I’ve been saying it for at least a year and a half or two years, I think MJF is going to if he’s not one of the best heels in the industry right now he’s going to be, um just needs a little more time.
And not because he needs to get better, he’s already great. But the wrestling audience is a weird audience. You know, they’re incredibly loyal, I think more loyal than maybe even NASCAR fans or pro sports fans in some cases. But they’re also very challenging in the sense that they don’t accept you right away, no matter how good you are, you have to earn their respect. And it’s hard for anybody who’s only been in the business for a year, or two, or three or four, even, to really get over with the audience.”
Bischoff continued, explaining “there’s only two people that have made it to the top that haven’t been in the business for at least five or seven years”:
“And if you go back in time, and you look at some of the biggest names in history of wrestling over the last, let’s just say 20 years, 25 years, there’s only two people that have made it to the top that haven’t been in the business for at least five or seven years. And that’s Rock and Goldberg. And I think the reason that they were able to collapse that cycle, or that trajectory is because wrestling is so freakin hot at the time that they essentially broke in. And because they had such exceptional charisma, and they found their way with their characters and their personalities, and they were given the opportunity.
Obviously, in Rock’s case with WWE and Goldberg’s case with WCW, they were given the opportunity to showcase that special charisma and that talent at a time when the wrestling audience was at a fever pitch. I mean, you could have vomited in the ring, and the vomit would get over at a certain point, that’s how hot wrestling was.
So it made it easier for two people like Rock and Goldberg who are incredibly gifted. In the case of Rock, I mean, sounds silly to even say he’s gifted, he’s just amazing. But I don’t think either one of them would have had nearly the success they had if they made their debuts three years earlier. I just don’t they just it was a perfect storm. And it was their incredible personalities of talent combined with the peak of the wrestling industry at that point, perfect Storm.”
Following his return at AEW All Out, MFJ spoke on the microphone on the September 7th edition of AEW Dynamite for the first time since his now infamous “pipe-bomb”. The star heavily leaned into his apparent desire to join WWE, name-dropping several WWE stars and executives.
It has also been reported that MJF is set to be questioned by investigators looking into the CM Punk/Elite brawl following AEW All Out.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please link back to this article with a h/t to Inside the Ropes.