Alexander Hammerstone Discusses MJF Leaving MLW For AEW, Why He Feels MJF Is Under-Appreciated

Alexander Hammerstone is the current MLW Openweight champion and a member of the stable The Dynasty. He talked about the concept behind the latter when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily.

"What's funny is that at the time I didn't see it. I was a little upset at the time because I'm selfish and I wanna be a star," Hammerstone said of being put into the group. "If I'm gonna move in with a company then I wanna work my way towards being the top guy. When they were like, 'Hey, we wanna put you in this group.' I was like, 'What!?' I saw what they were doing and I didn't necessarily see the fit."

In the early days of the group, The Dynasty took a thousand left turns until it finally found what made them great. Hammerstone calls being a part of the group his favorite thing that he's ever done in pro wrestling.

"The idea behind Dynasty may have been more cliché, rich boy elitist. Obviously, that's the core of what we present on TV, but we took so many liberties on how we want to portray our characters," said Hammerstone. "As long as it was working and was well-received, then it eventually got to the point where they stopped trying to steer us to hard because they knew we were gonna go wherever we wanted."

MJF was once a member of The Dynasty before he left for AEW and Hammerstone talked about trying to replace one of the stable's founding members.

"It's definitely weird. I've learned this ? we're not gonna try to copy the dynamic we had with a new guy. We're not gonna say, 'Gino, you have to be MJF.' We're just gonna see how the natural evolution goes because that's how we've done it up to this point," stated Hammerstone.

"But it's cool because if you go back to the beginning of Dynasty, it was me being one way and Max being one way. Then Richard Holliday was in the background. Now he's getting to take a lot of the reins as he's a great promo guy. I don't think the company had that faith in him when we first started. Now he's getting to step into the forefront and I'm happy to see that for him."

He added that the internet has its own perspective but he never felt like MJF was the leader of the group. He says that everyone had an equal stake in the group and Gino should have more opportunities ahead.

"We've become one of the cornerstones of the show and [Gino] is being thrown into the deep end. Now you're gonna have a promo on every episode and a lot of segments and air time to develop whatever you want to develop. I think it's gonna be a good learning and growing opportunity for him so I think everybody's in a really good spot now," said Hammerstone.

MJF is one of the fastest rising stars in all of pro wrestling and Hammerstone discussed watching him explode into the star he's become.

"Max is a guy that I'm super happy and thankful for. He already had the rocket ship on his ass by the time we formed The Dynasty. It was just a matter of when they were gonna light it," said Hammerstone. "He was already involved with AEW so we knew what was gonna happen. I'm happy that we got to do what we did with him while the time was going."

Hammerstone said Max gets a lot of praise but not the praise and attention he should.

"Max is one of the best wrestlers I've wrestled in the last couple of years," stated Hammerstone. "His mind for the business so far exceeds his colleagues. It's insane especially when you take into consideration that he's only been doing this for a couple of years.

"When I had a match with him during The Opera Cup, I walked out of the match going, 'Oh my God. You are so good but the internet is never gonna give you credit for that!'"

He added that it's one thing to get hate but it's another when people take the time to in detail to write out why they hate you. Hammerstone admits that it can get to you and be frustrating but he is glad that Max is getting what he deserves.

There have been several wrestling promotions that moved from one network to another recently or others that simply debuted such as AEW and NXT on USA. Hammerstone was asked about MLW potentially moving to another platform in 2020.

"You never know. A lot of that stuff I figure out when everyone else figures it out," Hammerstone admitted. "Court is not a guy who prematurely pulls the gun or announces. Everything is deliberately planned out and then executed. There were rumors a couple of weeks ago where people were sending me dirt sheets of what network we're switching to and I hadn't heard anything about it.

"I don't know if we're finishing 2020 on beIN Sports. I don't know if we're gonna become available on another streaming service such as Twitch or Amazon Prime. But it doesn't get much more accessible than on YouTube. If you're not watching it at that point, then you're not actually trying."

He noted that the perception of wrestling on TV is becoming a bit outdated in a way with all of the streaming platforms. Hammerstone also praised Court Bauer as being very smart and calculated with this kind of stuff.

"I hope that we just continue to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. It's felt like a steady growth since I've been there as every couple of months there's something really exciting that we're doing or a new deal being announced. I have full faith that we're gonna keep growing in a positive direction," stated Hammerstone.

Hammerstone's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon: by clicking here. The full interview can be heard via the embedded audio player below: