MJF Almost Debuted in NXT Before AEW Started

While on Talk is Jericho, Court Bauer explained that WWE and MLW were once much closer. The former WWE writer, and owner of MLW, said that they almost had a partnership which would have seen MJF make his WWE NXT debut in 2018.

“At one point, we were doing some business with WWE in 2018 – we were going to. We were fairly friendly I guess you could say, and there was talk about MJF possibly doing a crossover thing with them. We were taping, primarily at the time, out of Orlando, and they were – NXT, of course, is down the road.

So they start asking questions about him, and one of the things they asked was, ‘So he’s what, 26, 28, 29?’ I’m like, ‘No dude, he’s 21.’ They’re like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘Does he look that way, or just the experience? What is it,’ and I remember telling MJF that. He’s like, ‘I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know either.’

He has certain qualities you just don’t see in a lot of wrestling. A lot of wrestling, I think, as JR would say, ‘Do you have the sizzle there or what?’ And he kind of blends a lot of those qualities. Very much a throwback, but he doesn’t think he’s a throwback. He just takes those positive attributes and incorporates it into a modern character that works.”