MJF believes getting a new deal with Warner Bros. Discovery is the next step for AEW, aside from re-signing him.
In an interview with Ibou of WrestlePurists, AEW World Champion MJF was asked to share his thoughts on what the next step for AEW is. He first responded by pointing to the company coming to terms with him on a new deal. MJF then emphasized that his second answer could be reaching a new agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery.
“First says it’s coming to terms with a deal with him “The second answer I would give to that question is, Turner loves us right now. We are in the top three on a weekly basis, we are frankly the second-hottest property that they own. The first-hottest is the NBA, which to be fair had a bit of a head-start on us. So we’re sitting pretty. Sometimes I’ll read ‘sky is falling’ stuff online, and it makes me chuckle. I’ll bring something to everyone’s attention to nobody wants to talk about, and it’s even becoming blatantly obvious for RAW and SmackDown.
“Cable as a whole, cord-cutting as a whole, since 2019, is astronomical. Now, the way this business and industry is set up, especially with streaming now, things are changing. Now, pro wrestling is one of the hottest products that a big cable network can own because live sports is king. In a streaming world, for cable, live sports is king. That’s what we are. So 890,000 people in 2023 frankly is the equivalent to a million people in 2019. That’s a fact that hat people don’t want to talk about because people get weird about the cord-cutting thing.”
MJF Highlights AEW’s Roster
MJF continued by describing how he believes that AEW has the best wrestling in the game today. He stated that getting a new deal with Warner Bros. Discovery would help the company pay for stars like him. MJF then named numerous members of the roster and called it an embarrassment of riches.
“Genuinely, we’re giving people a reason to buy a fu—ing cable box. That is the undeniable truth about both WWE and AEW,” MJF said. “I think that they’re gonna give us a really good deal, and I think that that’s the next step for AEW. Because once they give us that good deal, then you pay big-money players like me what we’re worth, and that’s huge.
“Right now, I feel we have the strongest bell-to-bell roster probably in the history of the sport, and I don’t feel that’s hyperbole at all. Me, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Darby Allin, Chris Jericho, Claudio Castagnoli, Eddie Kingston, Brody King, RUSH, Ricky Starks, Will Hobbs, Samoa Joe, Miro, Malakai Black, it’s an embarrassment of riches.”
MJF: If AEW Gets On Max, That Would Be Massive
MJF then made it clear that landing a new deal with Warner Bros. Discovery would be the next step, and he also thinks getting on Max, their streaming service, would be huge.
“That’s what I think the next step is, us coming to a term or agreement with Turner,” MJF said,. “Outside of that, what I also will say is, I don’t know if it’s gonna happen, but I think if we do get on Max, that would be massive.”
As of this writing, it is not known whether AEW will land on Max.
WrestleZone will have coverage of AEW WrestleDream as it airs on October 1.
The full interview is available below:
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