William Regal may be impressed by what MJF does in AEW, but that doesn’t make the Salt of the Earth a true villain of wrestling.
MJF returned to AEW at the All Out Pay-Per-View, following a three-month hiatus, stemming from scathing comments made against AEW and Tony Khan.
At the event, MJF won the Casino Ladder match as the Joker entrant, earning an AEW World Championship match.
Fake Bad Guy
With his win at All Out, MJF has a championship title match, presumably with current AEW World Champion Jon Moxley.
Part of what has made MJF such a successful performer is his heel persona, which William Regal doesn’t buy as he explained on the Gentleman Villain podcast.
“I’ve always seen the potential in him. Not sure I like the way he goes about doing stuff. If you want to be a real bad guy, there are things that you can do and things that you can’t. I used this term on AEW the other week and it’s only a few people know this term. O-D-V, which is an ordinary decent villain.”
Regal explained that to be an ODV means knowing that those non-wrestlers are off limits, a lesson that MJF hasn’t learned.
“Anybody who signs up to be a pro wrestler, you’re fair game for anything my wicked mind wants to do to you. But if they don’t, you leave them alone.”
Roddy Piper
With his heel work, many (including WWE Hall of Famer Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts) have called MJF this generation’s Roddy Piper.
Addressing the comparison, Regal said that MJF couldn’t hang with the legendary talker.
“Roddy Piper would have seen straight through him. He would have gone ‘this is a lad who’s not grown up the same as us.’ He’s not got the same mentality.”
“Roddy Piper would have seen straight through him.”
William Regal.
“You might think you’re a bad guy, you might want to act like a bad guy. But there’s a difference there’s a big difference and very few people know that. A lot of people who got through this job by just acting like a bad guy.”
Tough Enough
Years before arriving in AEW, MJF tried out for the 2015 season of Tough Enough.
Speaking about MJF’s formative years, Regal discussed why the Salt of the Earth never made it in WWE NXT while Regal was in charge.
“He was young. Far too young to get hired [by WWE.] And there was only so many places in NXT. If you’ve got a full roster and somebody young [comes along] you go ‘right now what you need to do is go out and do your thing.’ Make people notice you, which he did.
MJF wouldn’t make it on the show, but his audition tape (suspiciously) remains on WWE’s YouTube channel.
