MJF Says He’s Working Last His Indie Show For a ‘Long Time’ This Week

MJF says that his match at Beyond Wrestling this weekend will be his last American indie show match “for an extraordinarily long time.” The AEW World Champion is set to battle Bobby Orlando at Beyond’s Break The Walls Down on Friday. The Salt of the Earth has worked a number of independent dates over the last several months, but he told Justin Barrasso for Undisputed that this will be his final one for the foreseeable future.

MJF told Barrasso that he is taking independent matches off the table so he can focus on AEW, where he reclaimed the World Title at Double or Nothing after having lost it to Darby Allin. You can check out highlights from the interview below:

On Working His Last Indie Show For Now:

“I’m going to announce that this is probably the last American independent match I’m going to have for an extraordinarily long time. I need to focus on AEW. I took my eyes off the ball for a millisecond, and a dude who is like 145-fucking-pounds soaking wet beat me. That can’t happen. I don’t care that he hit me in the nuts and spammed his finisher on me four times, and Aubrey Edwards, who is a complete liar, made a fast count. But glass half full, I’m now a three-time champion at the age of 30.”

On His Match With RUSH Tonight:

“Some people feel he is the most lethal man in wrestling. I’ve been in the squared circle with him before. Did I win? Yes. Did it take a year or two off my career? Also, yes. This dude is fucking terrifying.”

On Working the Beyond Wrestling Show:

“Beyond was one of the first independent circuits that really took a chance on me. That’s where I could talk on the microphone before my matches, and it’s where I wrestled big matches with top names at the time on the independent circuit. Now I want to come in and see what Bobby Orlando is all about. I’m excited to test this kid, I’m excited to get more eyeballs on him and on Beyond, and that’s naturally what is going to happen because I am the biggest fucking draw in this business. I’m looking forward to it, and hopefully he gets a contract out of it.”

On Being trained At Create-A-Pro:

“There is no better professional wrestling school than Create A Pro. There just isn’t. I believe that wholeheartedly. And I see that they pump a lot of money into the [WWE] Performance Center, and there are a lot of different options for schools other than CAP, but in my opinion, between Pat Buck and Brian Myers, you’re just not getting better training. Pat’s showing you the old school shit and building you from the ground up, perfecting your basics. Hawkins [Myers] is a guy who has worked in every major company, and he’s also a guy who’s done PWG and your local indie. He just has the brain for it, and so does Pat.”

On Bobby Orlando:

“I look at a guy like Bobby Orlando, who is an oddball and a weirdo, but this cat is driven. That’s the one thing we share in common. When I was on the indies, I used to get in my car and name a state, because I drove to it. Name an amount of money I didn’t make wrestling on those shows, and I didn’t make it. Name a number of fans who were barely in that crowd, I wrestled in front of them. I wrestled every Wednesday at Dojo Wars in front of like eight people on a good day in Blackwood, New Jersey, then on a Thursday I’d get in my car and drive to this place called Sanctuary in Pennsylvania or this promotion called XWA. If I wasn’t doing Dojo Wars, I’d drive all the way out to Dayton, Ohio to wrestle at Rockstar Pro. Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, whether it was AIW, AAW, Beyond, Limitless–and the list goes on–I was booked.

“I see what Bobby’s doing. I see how hard he’s working, I see how driven he is. I saw the promo he cut on me online. I can’t help but fucking respect that. What I respect more than anything in this business is grind. I wasn’t supposed to make it. I’m not well over six-feet tall, I’m not a juiced-up bodybuilder. I didn’t come from the NFL or the NBA. I’m just a great professional wrestler. If you look through the annals of our sport, that used to not even get you a look. I’m watching what they’re doing over there in NXT, and they’re kind of going back to that formula with the former athletes–but they keep finding better luck utilizing guys that actually love this business and guys who are actually wrestlers first. And I look at a guy like Bobby Orlando–and I’m constantly hearing his name, whether I want to or not–because he’s been killing it on the indies.”