A new report has shed more light on the meeting between Tony Khan and MJF after the AEW star failed to inform the office about an interview in which he praised WWE.
MJF recently gave an interview with Ariel Helwani for his podcast, The Ariel Helwani Show. In the conversation, the AEW star touched on a number of topics including his recent feud with CM Punk, his thoughts on WWE, his friendship with Bruce Prichard, and his contract status.
Fightful Select claimed that the interview led to a “heated discussion” between MJF and AEW President Tony Khan over the weekend with the AEW President said to be unhappy that MJF hadn’t cleared the interview with the office.
Now Dave Meltzer in the latest Wrestling Observer Radio has discussed the situation saying that the content of the interview wasn’t the problem but rather that the Dynamite Diamond ring winner didn’t go through the appropriate company channels:
“He did the interview with Ariel Helwani which I wrote about a lot in the Observer and you can listen to and everything like that. [MJF was] you know praising WWE – MJF is always in character but he was praising WWE and what happened was and I did not know this, Tony Khan talked to him and it was not about the interview as much as doing the interview without clearing it with the office because you’re supposed to.”
“MJF did admit that yeah he didn’t do it. You’re supposed to tell Mandy O’Donnell and like, the company didn’t know he was doing it until he did it and it’s not like they’d have banned him from doing it with Ariel Helwani, they’d have been fine with it. It’s not like the content of the interview, there was not really an issue with that because he’s done other interviews like that.”
“Yeah WWE would probably like shoot a guy if they did an interview like MJF did but they’re not WWE. If they go in there to talk about how great the other company is and say they can’t wait for their contract – he didn’t say he can’t wait for his contract to run out but he did say his contract runs out on January 1st, 2024 so he gave a date. And said he’s not going to sign a new deal with AEW until his contract runs out unless they offer him an incredible amount of money and he should say that.”
“[…] There was a situation, it has been settled. You’re supposed to tell the office when you’re doing interviews, they’re not supposed to find out when the interviews on, that’s kind of their rule there.”
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