On Tuesday, MJF was honored with the key to the town in Oyster Bay, New York, which is where he resides.
Speaking with the New York Post to discuss the honor, the AEW World Champion revealed that he became emotional and nearly cried during the ceremony.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his emotions around being honored by his hometown: “I don’t know if you could tell, I almost cried up there. This means everything to me. This place is home and now I have a key to that home. Growing up here wasn’t always easy. Having Attention Deficit Disorder and having a legitimate learning disability in school in a time where people were still adjusting to realizing whether or not that’s real or fake or an excuse. People struggled with it and I dang sure struggled with it. Again, the community is so strong and tight knit and when people found out I was going to try to achieve this incomparable dream people came together. I remember seeing videos of people in the local bars watching me versus Jon Moxley (at Full Gear) and beating that total dweeb, loser. I’m proud of that. I’m proud that people at home that are from this place know that I genuinely have a deep caring and yearning to come back every week and I’m never gonna leave. I’m doing movies and TV now and pro wrestling and it’s never even entered my mind the thought of living anywhere else, ever, ever, ever.”
On not being seen as doing charity and helping kids on screen: “Let me … Only Long Island people. I don’t help disgusting poors from outside this region and I never will. I’m here for Long Islanders and I’d also say I’m here for people who are members of the tribe, people in the Jewish community as a whole. There’s not a lot of us. It’s because we’ve been killed off time and time again. In all sincerity, it means the world to me to be a Jew that is brave and strong, a larger than life personality as opposed to feeble or cheap, which you know unfortunately, those are a lot of the words people will use to describe people in the Jewish community and I’m glad to prove that’s not the case. A Jewish person can be anything they want to be. They don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer. You can be a professional wrestler.”
On being a performer when their home city becomes part of the show: “For me, I come here and it’s the one time of year that people from around here get to have the cathartic appreciation of me because wherever else I go I’m the most hated man on planet Earth. I come here, I’m the most loved. For me that means a lot because I get respite, even if it’s only one week. People got to tip their hat to me. It means the world to me and that mean’s I’m doing my job.”
