Freddie Prinze Jr. Doesn’t Believe MJF Will Leave AEW For WWE
In a recent appearance on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Freddie Prinze Jr. discussed the possibility of MJF leaving AEW for WWE next year.
Prinze noted that MJF would prefer the relative freedom of AEW compared to WWE’s micromanaged culture.
The former WWE writer also shared his perspective on Cody Rhodes’ WrestleMania 39 loss to Roman Reigns and the recently-reinstated WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On what would keep MJF at AEW instead of looking toward WWE: “I don’t know. You know, the character of MJF will go where the money’s best. But I think special stars get special treatment, and exceptions are made for exceptional people. And I feel like any offer WWE would make Tony Khan would match. And MJF has a ton of freedom, a ton of freedom where he’s at. And at WWE you simply don’t. It’s a publicly traded company, there are people to answer to, and I’ve heard that when I worked there. So, it’s just a different environment. And I don’t know if Max would trust the process there at that company to get him as over as he is at a smaller company. And AEW, by the way, they’re doing fine. They pre-sold over 35,000 tickets in London for a pay-per-view that’s technically two pay-per-views away. So, they’re doing well. That’s a big win for them. So as long as they keep producing like that you know, I don’t [know]. If I were him, I wouldn’t leave because like the storyline they put him in with the other three, they’re the four pillars. They’re the young ones that helped build the company with Jericho laying down the foundation right, and Cody. But yeah, man, I don’t, I get the MJF hate, I just don’t agree with it. And I don’t think he would leave. Listen, WWE does great stuff. All right, the whole Bloodline, Sami Zayn thing was great stuff. But they also do stuff that feels very tight and constrictive and you feel like the talent is being someone that they don’t believe in. And it’s hard to ask a professional wrestler to just get rid of who they are and be someone else. They’re not a trained actor 99% of the time. They’re amazing in the ring. They know how to do that kind of psychology, but they don’t know how to break down a monologue, which they call a promo. When I was there, that was, I mean, I was literally teaching them what I was learning in acting class on how to break a scene down as far as like, goal, objective route. That’s what I want, that’s what stops me from getting what I want as an actor, what choices am I going to make to get that? Am I going through the objective? Am I going under it? Am I going around? Those were all the things that we talked about with their promos. Like what is it you want out of this promo? I want to get over. Everybody wants to get over, what is it the character wants? He wants a shot at the title. Okay, what’s preventing you from getting that shot at the title? Well, this guy is, you know, he’s making me wrestle all these other guys to earn a shot. He’s interfering in all the [matches]. Perfect. What are you going to do? Now what’s the promise you’re going to make to the crowd? What’s the promise going to be? Doesn’t matter how many things he throws at me, it doesn’t matter how many times he cheats, I’m still going to be here. You’re not gonna, you know, then that’s how we would develop a promo basically. But even then, when it was done, sometimes it would get changed last minute, because you know, Vince, caught a wild hare and all of a sudden it was Oh, this sucks. Like he was great an hour ago. Those were your words, this is great, this is shit. Like what happened in 60 minutes? You know what I mean? Like who talked to you, man, who got to you? Was his name Kevin? So yeah, man, so things change last minute there at a much higher rate. And I’m sure there’s pros and cons to both companies that people that are more on the inside are far more aware of than I am. But if I were him, I wouldn’t leave. Would you? You finish building your perfect castle, your perfect castle with all the defences you need. You have, the people are happy, they’re well fed. Everyone’s starting to make money. And then you’re just gonna go to this castle over here. No, man, why would you start over?”
On where Cody Rhodes’ WrestleMania loss might fit in to a larger story: “Check this out. So, a buddy of mine, who knows way more about wrestling than me. He’s a Broadway actor and he loves [wrestling]. I don’t want to say his name, because if he got it right, I don’t want WWE to like prevent him from getting tickets. But he’s, he’s so cool. And he loves wrestling and he hits me up after Cody lost at Mania and he goes, What if it wasn’t Vince that made him lose? I said okay. And he said, he goes what if when he [Cody] talked to Triple H and he says and you know, Triple H is a student of the game like he knows every storyline that’s ever been told. He loved all those old guys. Yeah, said what if the plan was for him to lose all along and they recreate the Dusty Rhodes hard times storyline. So, for the whole year, Cody’s just getting fucked time and time and it takes him a year to earn his way back till the very next WrestleMania and Romans the champ all the way and so I was like well what happens at Backlash? He goes Brock squashes him. Brock kills him. And I go, Dude, you don’t think it kills his career? He goes, if they’re doing the hard time story it doesn’t because that’s what Magnum TA did to Dusty on his road to the title. And I’m sitting there and he pitched it so nice. And I if I could do my impression of him if I could do the whole story, but that would give away who it is. But it was just his pitch was so good. I was like I’ll be damned if they’re not, I’m completely convinced now that that’s what’s gonna happen. So, watch Backlash. … Oh, well then, you’ll know whether we were right or wrong at that point. But even if he loses, even if he wins, they could still do it. I think they just have to connect it more to The Bloodline story again.”
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