MJF knows bad press comes with being one of AEW’s biggest names, but there’s one thing he’s pretty confident about. No matter what stories have been written about him over the years, he says he has never actually done anything that made AEW look bad.
Speaking on the Sports Media Podcast, MJF was discussing his relationship with social media when Richard Deitsch asked how much negative press actually bothers him. MJF admitted wrestlers should care about it to some extent because they aren’t only representing themselves.
“You know what? I think every wrestler should care to a degree. Because as an athlete, you are a representative of your company. So I care in that sense.”
That doesn’t mean every negative story gets under his skin. For MJF, it depends entirely on whether there’s actually any truth behind what’s being reported. If something about him is completely made up, he doesn’t see much reason to lose sleep over it.
“Now, it depends what the bad press is, right? If I know something’s absolutely fucking ridiculous, I’m not going to, like, live by the sword, die by the sword. If something’s so out of left field and so obviously fake, I’m not gonna care.”
He looks at things differently when the story is true. MJF admitted that if he genuinely does something wrong and it gets reported, blaming the people who reported it wouldn’t make much sense. At that point, he believes he should probably be looking at himself instead.
“But if I do something honest to God that’s bad and then it gets reported, I don’t know if I should be mad at the people reporting it or I should really be more so mad at myself. Right? And luckily, never in the history of my career here in AEW have I done something to make the company look bad.”
MJF did acknowledge that there have been stories about him that he considers complete nonsense. However, he made it clear that ust comes with the territory of being a professional wrestler and more.
“Now, there’s assuredly been a time or two where there’s been bull**** stories made up. But that comes with the territory of being a highly rated professional wrestler, household name, an athlete, an actor. People are going to be looking for things, right?”
He compared it to the celebrity stories he remembers seeing in People magazine growing up, where wild headlines were simply part of being famous. For MJF, there isn’t much anyone can do to completely stop those stories. The only part he can really control is how he represents AEW.
“So, like, that’s always gonna be there. There’s not much you can do about that. But the best thing you can do is try to be the best representative possible for your promotion.”
MJF has certainly found himself at the center of plenty of headlines during his AEW career, but he draws a pretty clear line between controversy and actually embarrassing the company. As far as he’s concerned, he’s never crossed it.
Do you agree with MJF that he has never done anything to make AEW look bad? Let us know in the comments.
