MJF is one of the fastest risers in professional wrestling, and the AEW star has drawn comparisons to someone who'd make it onto just about every fan's Mount Rushmore. At 26, The Salt Of The Earth is already a major draw for All Elite Wrestling. In most cases, performers in this business don't hit their prime until their mid-30s. That isn't a hard and fast rule by any means, but more of the past few decades' top wrestlers didn't find their stride until that point.

There are exceptions. John Cena won his first WWE World Championship at 27. Brock Lesnar was 25, while Randy Orton was 24. These are legit all-time greats, though—Future Hall Of Famers who seemed to shape the industry in their wake. If you ask MJF, the odds are that he'll tell you that is his trajectory. To be the kind of talent that can transcend the wrestling business and be a crossover star. He's not the only one who believes he could eventually be known as a generational talent.

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Dave Meltzer, in the most recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, compared MJF to Ric Flair. "Not in the ring itself, but as far as doing promos, he is reminding me of late 70s Ric Flair in the Carolinas where he was becoming the area's biggest star ahead of people who were far more established stars, and was a heel that everyone deep down wanted to cheer." Meltzer was reviewing Dynamite Grand Slam when he made these comments for context.

MJF Deserves The High Praise

In particular, Meltzer seemed to marvel at the things MJF said during his short promo at Grand Slam while still getting cheered. In particular, the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd didn't even boo him when he said there wasn't a man in the building who wouldn't let him sleep with their wife, but he wouldn't be interested because he had standards. Friedman only got the reaction he was looking for when he pushed Tony Schiavone down, at which point he finally received an adverse reaction.

Listening to some of Flair's old promo work, the comparison to MJF certainly makes sense. Sometimes there's frantic energy there that makes him impossible to ignore. It's not over the top for the sake of being so, though, which is the territory that many other professional wrestlers wade into. There's an unteachable air of authenticity to both Ric Flair and MJF. If it were easy, every superstar would claim to be the "stylin', profilin', limousine ridin', jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling and dealing son of a gun." It isn't that simple, even though magnetic personalities like Flair and MJF make it seem that way.

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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter