The latest guest on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast was AEW star Lee Moriarty, who spoke with The Ocho about his work with the Firm, when Tony Khan offered him a spot in the group, and finding out MJF’s involvement. Moriarty will be challenging HOOK for the FTW championship on this evening’s Rampage on TNT. Highlights from the interview are below.
On Tony Khan approaching him to join The Firm:
It was a very well-kept secret. I didn’t know it was MJF until that night. The way it started was, I was with Matt Sydal and Dante Martin in kind of a group. Tony Khan pulled me aside in the locker room, he asked me a question. He said, ‘Would you be comfortable dying your hair?’ Didn’t explain why or anything like that. He just said it would be coming with a big push and things like that, more opportunities. I said yeah, I’m cool with it. My trainers taught me to take something if they give it to you and just make the most of it. It’s hair, it’ll grow back in the future. That happened, they didn’t really tell me exactly what. They just said it was gonna be a group. Stokely told me it’s gonna be a big thing, and I trusted everyone who told me about it. I trusted Tony, I trusted QT, I trusted Stokely. After I took that business card when I defeated Matt Sydal back in July, disappeared for a month. Came back and then get the poker chip. I didn’t know it was MJF until afterwards. So after he got the poker chip and walked off, back to his trailer, I found out. It was a really well-kept secret.
Says he wasn’t certain who was behind the stable, or which members would be in it:
I didn’t find out until I was watching at home. The only person I knew was Ethan Page because I heard them talking about the promo that they had, when Stokely was gonna offer the card. But before that, I didn’t know the Gunns were gonna be in. I didn’t know Morrissey was gonna be in it, but whenever I saw Morrissey, that’s kind of when I leaned towards, I think it’s MJF. But I never had concrete evidence.
Recalls talking to W. Morrissey, who knew that MJF was the Joker in the Casino Ladder match, but couldn’t reveal that to anyone:
I get in, I meet Morrissey did the first time. He’s hard to miss in the middle of the ring. I talked to him. I just told him like, ‘Hey, do you know who this guy in the group is?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, but I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say because pretty much everyone was sworn to secrecy about it. See The Gunns, we’re all meeting in the corner of the ring. MJF doesn’t tell us, but he kind of gives the pointers to Stokely to tell us what is going on. Stokely is there, communication between MJF and us, and also Pat Buck, one of the agents.
How no one knew in the Casino Ladder match knew that MJF was the joker, but did know that someone was coming down and winning the match:
The moment came, the first match on [All Out], the ladder match. Everyone’s going crazy hard, Claudio, the Lucha Bros, Yuta, Dante. People were working in that match. Even them, as far as I know, they didn’t know too much. They didn’t know it was MJF. They just knew, hey, someone’s coming down and getting that poker chip. But they were kind of surprised too. I remember Alex Abrahantes was out there, and I remember hitting him. He’s just like, what is going on? I think he may have been smartened you, but not exactly. So he didn’t know how many people were coming.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
