Jim Cornette has heaped praise on MJF’s recent return to AEW Dynamite, describing the appearance as a “work of art.”
At AEW All Out a masked group attacked everyone in the Casino Ladder Match before one member of the group retrieved the poker chip hanging from the ceiling. The person who held the chip then revealed themselves to be Stokely Hathaway, before introducing the ‘Joker’ entrant into the match.
The masked star entered to Sympathy for the Devil and was handed the chip by Hathaway before leaving. Just before the show went off the air the masked man was revealed to be MJF, as he confronted then-AEW World Champion CM Punk.
On the following episode of Dynamite MJF initially cut a promo as a crowd-pleasing babyface before reverting to his usual persona after being challenged by Jon Moxley. The segment was a big hit with fans as well as one Jim Cornette. Speaking on his podcast, The Jim Cornette Experience, the legendary manager heaped praise on the young star.
I’ll tell you why I thought it was brilliant, not just the performance, he’s always good with that, but there was special oomph to this, but the people were going to cheer anyway. They were going to cheer because it’s MJF and he’s back and after all this other sh*t show they’ve seen at least there is something we might want to watch, right? So he let them get it out of their system.
Taking a page out of the Johnny Valentine book, you want to chat boring, I’ll f*cking bore you. Get it out of your system. And then I’m f*cking his dog, and you’re holding its head. Johnny Valentine, that statement made for the first time I’ve ever made it may be actually true.
So MJF convinced us that he was going to be an over the top gimmick baby face, it was still going to be MJF that smartass but now he’s going to be that fun loving smartass MJF. That’s what they thought, and he’s milking them for all it’s worth, and he showed that he can do it, he’s a verbal Maestro.
Just doing the ‘Hey how about a round of applause for yourselves give yourselves a round of applause.’ And he says he has the chip from the casino deal and a guaranteed title shot. He’s not going to mess around with this tournament, he’s going to cash in when he wants when the time is right, because folks, we need leadership. Did you catch that one?
We need leadership here. And just like he compared himself to Moses, except he’s better than Moses and he’s going to take his people straight through the parting of the Red sea, or the Cucamonga sea. I guess that would be the sea that needs parted right now is the Cucamonga sea. But anyway he finishes after this incredible dissertation, the people are cheering him they’re standing up they shout his catchphrase.
He takes a bow and Moxley’s music hits, and here comes wild thing, you make my toilet sing. Apparently the language warning was real because Moxley gets in the ring and confronts him and the first thing he says is you’re full of crap. Jon Moxley didn’t say crap on purpose unless they have all been told that sh*t is no longer tolerated in this establishment. Because this is the guy that told the fan go f*ck himself time right. So as soon as Moxley says that, like a light switch and seamlessly MJF becomes the real MJF again and instantly turns back heel.
That’s right, this town sucks and his quarterbacks is the sh*ts, and blah, blah blah, and they’re starting to boo him out of the building. It was beautiful, it was a work of art. Because they were gonna give him that reaction when he came out, so he let him get it out of their system.
Now comes another part of the controversial part of this promo is that MJF goes on the bender about I’m gonna cash this chip in, it’s going to be another bargaining chip in my bidding war of 2024 when I go to a real company with real fans and real wrestlers like my friend Cody, and the only real Khan in wrestling good old St. Nick. And again, he’s brilliant…
At the same same time I see what they’re trying to do here because it makes MJF the devil himself no pun intended to this audience, to the AEW audience and the AEW faithful, it makes MJF the biggest prick in the world because he wants to go to the WWE where he’ll make a lot of money and be treated like a star instead of this sh*t show. And that makes sense because to be quite honest, let’s face it, both sides have a point and I can see both of them.
But there are not enough people in play here, fans, viewers in play that are undecided to make a difference anymore in you know, when they say MJF is just making WWE sound like the big company. Well, everybody knows it already is, there’s not enough people you could really convince in the middle there.
So MJF is getting heat on himself with that audience. And then Moxley says ‘Well, you better leave the ring right now or I’ll make you.’ And both of them stripped down, and by the way, MJF if this was a shoot, and he really couldn’t get the sleeve of his shirt off, and had to work that hard, it was serendipitous. It was perfect. It was brilliant. It reminded me of the old JJ Dillon can’t unzip my jacket spot.
They have the face off, and then MJF powders and walks out. So it was a brilliant verbal performance. And I understand the problems that some people have with his referring to the WWE if everybody or even anybody else, much less everybody, if anybody else started doing it on the programme it would be ga-ga. But because of who he is, what his situation is, and how he can do it and how he gets mileage out of it, it doesn’t bother me that bad.”
With MJF out of the ring, Jon Moxley addressed fans with a heart-felt promo of his own where set out his desire to become AEW World Champion. Elsewhere on his podcast, Cornette also praised Moxley, commenting that his promo was one of the greatest of all time.
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