MJF On Learning From Chris Jericho, Which Wrestling Legends He’s Studied The Most

In a recent interview with Fightful, MJF discussed learning from Chris Jericho, which wrestling legends he’s studied the most, and much more. Here are some of the highlights:

MJF on learning from Chris Jericho: “I had a bar mitzvah, it was called Maximania. I took the WWE logo and flipped it into an M. You know who else did that? Yeah, the Miz, and he did it four years after I invented it. We’re not going to get into that. It’s cool. He did his own thing with it. Was it upsetting? Should I have trademarked it? Probably. But, it is what it is. Mike Mizanin, hell of a guy, love his show on E!, But, yeah, I had one of the tables named after Jericho. I’ve always been a fan of CJ. I think CJ is a tremendous performer.

“I see a lot of people claiming we have similarities, and I do find it interesting because when Christopher was asked the same question, ‘Do you see the similarities between you and MJF?’ His response was, ‘I was nowhere near as good at the age of 24 as MJF is. I was working moose lodges in Canada.’ Which is true. What I want people to understand is, I pick and chose little aspects of people’s games ‘cause I’m a student of the game. Chris Jericho is most certainly one of the people that I definitely studied an awful amount of.”

On which wrestling legends he’s studied the most: “Well, I’ve said Roddy Piper a billion times. Ric Flair. Tully Blanchard. It’s unfortunate that me and him had to have a spat back in the day, but I think if me and him talked it out, it’d be fine. I mean, the list honestly goes on and on. Nick Bockwinkle. I grow exhausted with the examples simply because I watch so much professional wrestling. I watch Mid-South Wrestling. I watch Global. I watch Smokey Mountain. I watch AWA. I watch World Class. I watch anything I can get my hands on from, pretty much, from ’92 downward simply because so many people in my generation don’t concern themselves with that time frame because they feel they can get nothing from it. I find that laughable.

“There’s a reason why every single time I’m in the ring it seems I’m unique. I feel like a throwback of sorts. I feel different. Whereas every else is kinda going out there and they’re trying to do sequences as fast as they possibly can, and they’re trying to hurt their opponent by doing flips and dives. It was never my M.O. I believe Chris Jericho is somebody that was able to mix both the old school and the new school, and that’s something I pride myself on as well.”