MJF recently spoke with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the AEW World Champion spoke about how he sang Bing Crosby’s “Pennies From Heaven” song on AEW Dynamite as an homage to his Grandfather, as well as how he feels he represents the Jewish community every week on television.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On how he sang “Pennies from Heaven” by Bing Crosby on the April 5 episode of AEW Dynamite as a tribute to his Grandfather: “So Papa Stanley—big scoops here at Fightful—do you see this tattoo? Can you see it? That’s my grandfather. He passed away about three years ago. He was a band leader. He actually, practically, invented bar mitzvah parties. So what used to happen was, he would go to a bar mitzvah. Some poor fucking schmuck would read their haftara and then everybody would eat a bagel with cream cheese and go home. There was no party atmosphere in the aftermath. My grandfather was like, ‘This is fucking lame.’ He was the leader of the Al Stan Orchestra. So he started post-haftara parties. Then that became a huge thing. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, the Al Stan Orchestra was fucking huge. If you’re in the north east, you know what the Al Stan Orchestra is. He loved Pennies from Heaven. He would just randomly start blurting out that song in public places. So that one was for him.”
On how he isn’t the only Jewish talent to find success in wrestling, but there aren’t many others, as well as his thoughts on Bill Goldberg and Paul Heyman: “None that are fucking good, but yeah. Goldberg, is that who you’re gonna fucking bring up. He’s barely Jewish. Paul’s great. Yeah, Paul Heyman. He’s my uncle.”
On representing the Jewish community on television every week: “You know, a little transparency, it means the world to me. There was two types of Jews that you would see in the media, TV or in movies. It was either really fat money hungry or really feeble, ‘Oh, please, don’t hurt me.’ So for people to be able to have a Jew to watch on TV to represent them that’s handsome and cool and charming and funny and witty and intelligence and very humble I think is so important. So important.”
Check out the complete interview at Fightful.com.
