Wrestling icon Jim Cornette has discussed at length his thoughts on MJF and why AEW is on the verge of dropping the ball on the “once-in-a-generation” star.
The situation surrounding MJF and AEW is far from clear with the star missing from television for weeks now and Tony Khan refusing to discuss the star.
The former leader of The Pinnacle has not been seen since challenging Khan to “fire me you f*cking mark” live on Dynamite. That came after speculation ran wild that the Long Island native wouldn’t appear for his scheduled match with Wardlow at Double Or Nothing after missing an advertised meet and greet amid rumours he is very unhappy with his contract situation.
Now speaking exclusively to Inside The Ropes’Kenny McIntosh, Jim Cornette has had his inimitable say on the situation. Cornette begins by saying if it is a case of Khan and MJF ‘working’ other AEW wrestlers as well as fans, then he can understand it in this day and age:
“I don’t know what they are f*cking doing. It was great a few weeks ago when he was the talk of wrestling. First of all, I was never into the idea of kayfabing the boys, because we are all in on the work, and we kayfabe the public. But now in the modern day, to paraphrase Dutch Mantell, the marks are in the locker room instead of the seats, they are blabbermouths.”
“I wouldn’t tell the boys anything, they can’t wait to tweet pictures of themselves with their opponents or congratulate each other on a great match or spill their f*cking guts. I am glad they did not serve in the military or we would all be speaking f*cking German. So kayfabing the boys is the least of my things.”
As far as MJF goes, Jim Cornette believes him to be a “once-in-a-generation” talent on the microphone and praised the star for overcoming some segments that weren’t to his taste, namely a famous one involving a song and dance routine with Chris Jericho:
“MJF is a once-in-a-generation verbal talent, and he can work as well. He is not the biggest in the world but he has enough size to get by because of the way he draws you into him. And since he was the primary one of the very few homegrown AEW developed talents that were not on television beforehand and had not been seen by the general public, MJF got over better than anyone.”
“He was driving the ratings and selling pay-per-views in his match with Punk. MJF was actually good enough to survive the f*cking dance routine with Chris “Gene Kelly” Jericho when he tried to sabotage MJF to make himself look even more grandiose, MJF survived that.”
“And then they get into this situation because obviously, Tony has thrown around a lot of money for some of these guys. Nobody knows exactly how much but that’s their business. I’ve seen somebody say that PAC is apparently being paid $1 million a year. My God, as my uncle Harry would say ‘They saw Tony coming down the road.’ Punk is worth a few million, Jericho for his name value at the time I would have done the same thing as I mentioned, I didn’t know that he was a right-wing lunatic.”
“But with MJF, he came in on a lower contract, I understand there was consternation about that. He is outperforming and outdrawing these other guys that are making more money, so he and Tony are having it out.”
Cornette went on to liken MJF to another want-away star that was part of another similar storyline in the nineties, Brian Pillman:
“I wasn’t involved with the discussions, don’t know anything about the backstage, but MJF comes out on television when everybody knows about it in the news and he cuts that promo. He says ‘Fire me motherf*cker.’ And all this other stuff. And it was great, like you said, the buzz, he was the hottest guy in wrestling.”
“With [Brian] Pillman there are the comparisons there, except I think MJF is a better promo than Brian Pillman. Brian Pillman just may have been a little better at giving you the impression that he is a lunatic, but then he [MJF] goes away and there is nothing followed up on.”
“Now I said this on my show at the start of the thing, you’ve got to have a way for him to reappear and it looks like a shoot. You’ve got to find a way to make it look like he is not authorised to be there. Does he buy a ticket and sit there ringside with a sign until security kick him out or whatever the f*ck Pillmanesque sh*t.”
“He can’t just pop up on the video screen because several people had to be ok with that, the director, the video guy. But do stuff to still make it look legitimate and get him involved with somebody so Tony has to bring him back so that he can get his ass kicked. Whatever the case, keep it going.”
The former manager of the legendary Midnight Express expressed his view that with each passing week, AEW is missing out on capitalising on the MJF story, something he accuses the company of doing with other stars in the company:
“Now it has been what, more than a month? Well, the show has sucked since then because Punk got hurt at the same time. Maybe they have got something brilliant. There are parts of this that is definitely a shoot. We think that there are parts that is a work and we don’t know which is which. But my God, you had something.”
“It’s just like when Bryan Danielson was the best wrestler in the world in December for about 6 weeks. He was a heel, a technical wrestling heel that was also giving passive aggressive, condescending interviews. He was making it look effortless, you couldn’t wait to see him in the ring and you couldn’t wait to see what he was going to say next.”
“Then suddenly, he is in the Blackpool Combat Club with Jon “The Plumber” Moxley who I have decided is the absolute sh*ttiest wrestler on the f*cking planet that people are trying to push because he is friends with people backstage.”
“That’s what I am talking about with talent mismanagement. You have got something unexpected with Bryan Danielson, let’s capitalise on that, no. You’ve got something with MJF let’s capitalise on that, no. You’ve got something with FTR, let’s capitalise on that, no. He [Tony Khan] just goes about his sh*t depending on how much Adderall he took last week. So what I am saying is something better happen soon, or they have all lost out on MJF being the hottest wrestler in the business.”
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