During a recent interview with WrestlePurists, AEW World Champion MJF commented on AEW’s relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery, the next potential TV rights deal for All Elite Wrestling, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On AEW’s relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery: “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, and sometimes I’ll read ‘the sky is falling stuff’ online and it makes me chuckle. I’ll bring something to everyone’s attention that 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, it’s 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 cable provider can or a big cable network can own because live sports is king. In the 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.”
On the reality of cord-cutting: “That’s just a fucking fact that people don’t want to talk about because people get weird about the cord-cutting thing. If you actually do the math, and you look up how many houses and households have been stopped [using cable]… genuinely, we’re giving people a reason to buy a fucking cable box. That is the undeniable truth about both WWE and AEW. I think that [Warner Bros. Discovery] is going to give us a really good deal, and I think that’s the next step for AEW because once they give us that good deal, you can pay big money players like me what we’re worth, and that’s huge.”
On AEW’s roster: “Right now, undoubtedly, and I think everyone would admit this, I feel like we have the strongest bell-to-bell roster probably in the history of the sport, and I don’t feel like that’s hyperbole at all. Me, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Adam Cole, Roderick Strong — fucking piece of shit, Brody King, RUSH, Ricky Starks, Will Hobbs, Samoa Joe, Miro, Malakai Black. It’s an embarrassment of riches, bro. I could go on and on until my face turns blue.”
On AEW’s next media rights deal and a potential streaming deal on Max: “That’s my deal. That’s what I think the next step is, just us coming to a term of agreement with Turner. Outside of that, what I also will say is, I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I think if we do get on Max that would be massive.”
