MJF Talks The Legacy Of His AEW World Title Reign, How Much The Match Against Kenny Omega Meant To Him

MJF opens up about his run as AEW world champion.

The Salt of the Earth recently became the longest reigning AEW world champion in history, surpassing Kenny Omega’s previous record of 346 days. The Cleaner challenged MJF for the title a couple of weeks ago on AEW Collision, but was bested by the champ in what many called one of AEW’s best television matches ever.

MJF spoke about his reign, and how he always knew he would have to face-off against Omega, during a recent interview with Sports Illustrated.

I want to be the best AEW champion. The only other person that came up in my mind was Kenny Omega. Here I was coming up on his reign, so I decided I needed to start needling this f—— guy. I needed to prove I am the most complete world champion in the history of AEW. Kenny is the best bout machine. Jon Moxley is this incredible brawler. Chris Jericho is an incredible linguist. All these guys are superb at a lot of things. But I can do it all. I can make you feel any feeling I want you to feel.

MJF later says that he is incredibly grateful to Omega, one of the men who helped launch AEW, for essentially passing him the torch for the next generation of wrestlers.

I wanted a match with Kenny Omega, the best in the world in a pay-per-view main event–but on free television because I’m salt of the earth. That is the best match in Collision history, and it’s one of the best matches in AEW history. It was a really big deal for the company, and it really felt like the handing of the baton of who the top dog, bell-to-bell is in AEW. I couldn’t be more grateful that Kenny gave me that opportunity.

Elsewhere in the interview, MJF spoke about his AEW contract preparing to expire and how he knows Tony Khan will throw whatever money he wants for him to stay. You can read about that here.