MJF chats ALL IN ahead of All In.
This Sunday, All Elite Wrestling is presenting their biggest show to date. The company’s All In pay-per-view is taking place at Wembley Stadium in London, England and over 80,000 people will be in attendance.
Headlining the event is AEW World Champion MJF and he’ll be defending the title against Adam Cole. On the Zero Hour pre-show, Cole and MJF are challenging Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) for the ROH World Tag Team Titles.
Back in 2018, MJF competed at the first ALL IN event at the Sears Centre in Illinois. While being interviewed by Busted Open Radio’s Dave LaGreca, MJF said he had no right being on that card. He added that it’s funny to say that now because he’s a bigger star than anyone who was on that show.
The AEW World Champion credited Cody Rhodes for taking a chance on him and said had he not been on that show and in the spot he was in, he would not have garnered interest from WWE and what would eventually become AEW.
I had no right on that card (ALL IN 2018). I had absolutely no right being on that card whatsoever. I didn’t, I didn’t. If you look at the names on that card, at the time, which is hysterical because now I’m a bigger name than all of them. But at the time — what? Am I f*cking lying? (He laughed)… I’m working on not being an overt braggart when I know that people know the truth. I don’t have to sit here and explain that I am the biggest ratings draw or the biggest merch seller in the company because it’s just out there online now. But, to look around in that locker room and be in that locker room simply because Cody Rhodes decided to take a chance on me, that’s always gonna stick with me. Now, did I beat Cody? Smackdab in the middle of a ring, live on pay-per-view? I did. I did. But, I am thankful for that opportunity that he got me because if I didn’t wrestle that match against Matt Cross in the opener of ALL IN, I wouldn’t have been offered a contract and I wouldn’t have had interest from both the two major promotions at that time, WWE and AEW.
MJF circled around to the earlier stages of his career. He recalled being 19 years old and having contract offers from both MLW and EVOLVE. He opted to sign with MLW because he wanted to learn about wrestling on television. He said he was never concerned with being beloved on the independents.
Court Bauer and Gabe Sapolsky both offered me a contract in the same exact week when I was 19 years old. So, I had EVOLVE here and I had MLW here and I ended up going with MLW because the idea of learning TV excited me. I understood that EVOLVE had incredible players there. But to me, my end goal was always to get to this. Not to be the indie darling. This was always my end goal. Be the best in the business, be a world champion because that’s what being a world champion is. So I went there and I got to understand the difference between television wrestling, even if it’s on a smaller scale, versus the independent circuit at a young age.
Adam Cole and MJF are going to be interviewed by Renee Paquette on the 8/23 Dynamite. POST Wrestling will be reviewing the show after it goes off the air.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
