MVP on Hurt Syndicate Is In Discussions About Adding New Member, AEW’s Affordable Ticket Prices, His Praise of AEW’s Locker Room, Shelton Benjamin Signed New Contract Extension With AEW, Darby Allin, & More

A recent episode of the Battleground Podcast featured MVP as the guest. One of the topics discussed included MVP’s thoughts about the Hurt Syndicate being in talks about adding a new member to their group.

“We are currently discussing adding a new member. The last go-around, we tried it with MJF. It didn’t go well because he just didn’t make the cut. He wasn’t good enough. He doesn’t have the drive, he doesn’t have internal capability for true violence. He’s a huckster… I went out on a limb and vouched for him with my colleagues but, he just didn’t make the cut so, that kind of soured us a little bit about trying to add somebody new but, we think we do need a little youthfulness. We need a youthful spark, so, it could be about time to add a new member.”

MVP also gave his thoughts about his praise of AEW’s affordable ticket prices for their shows compared to WWE.

“That’s one of the things that I’ve been talking about for some while now. It’s the affordability. You know, right now in our country, we have a problem with affordability across the board. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. It’s tough, and whatever your wrestling affiliation is, you have to admit that there are some companies that are charging more than the average wrestling fan can afford to go and see some good, live wrestling. AEW, affordability matters and we love the fact that Tony Khan has set up a company where we get down to wrestling. It’s where the best go to wrestle, and a father of two or three, a family of four can go to an AEW show and have a great time. Case and point, in Fresno, Save Mart Center… You have AEW Dynamite, live, and then after that, you have a Collision taping. So you get two shows for the price of one. You can buy affordable seats ringside. You can sit just a few rows back from ringside and not have to spend two months’ salary to do it, and I think that’s a beautiful thing.”

MVP also gave his thoughts about what differentiates AEW from the other locker rooms he’s been in.

“Youth and spirit. Extremely young locker room and lots of spirit. Just some young people that are extremely hungry, and they want to make a name for themselves, they want to make a career for themselves, and they’re constantly battling amongst each other for who can be the absolute best. No one’s skating on past accomplishments. Every week, everyone’s trying to go out there and compete for the best match, the best entertaining segment. And the fans win in the end. So I love the youthful exuberance that I find in the locker room week after week.”

In a separate recent interview with Your Entertainment Escape, MVP also gave his thoughts about the Hurt Syndicate’s plans for 2026 and revealed him and Hurt Syndicate member Shelton Benjamin had signed a new contract extension with AEW “not to long ago.”

“See, if I tell you, then you’ll know what to expect, and we don’t get down like that, man. Just know that the Hurt Syndicate is not going anywhere. As a matter of fact, Shelton and I signed contract extensions not that long ago. So we’ll be around kicking ass and not even bothering to take names for some time to come. In terms of what we’ll be doing, we’ll just keep it simple. We will continue to hurt people.”

MVP also gave his thoughts about the upcoming Coffin match between Darby Allin and Gabe Kidd on this week’s AEW Dynamite show.

“Check this out. Darby Allin is facing Gabe Kidd at the Save Mart Center in a coffin match, for Dynamite. Now, when you want to talk about insane, who is more insane than Darby Allin? If you think about it, Darby Allin has absolutely no regard for his well-being. So that means he cares even less about his opponent’s well-being. I mean, this is a kid that is summited Mount Everest. You can’t put anything past him. You can’t take anything from him. Gabe Kidd, he’s got his work cut out for him.”

MVP also gave his thoughts about how he tells people all the time that he has the “best job in the world” getting to work with the Hurt Syndicate.

“I tell people all the time that I’ve got the best job in the world. My friends beat people up and I talk about it. I can’t, you know? Like, Shelton and Bobby are legitimately two of my closest friends. We’re like brothers. We’re business partners. So I just get to… make a whole lot of money hanging out with my friends. What better job could you possibly have? You get paid a lot to just hang out with your friends. So it’s been awesome that we’ve been able to keep the story going, so to speak, and AEW has been a great experience for us. Tony Khan’s a great guy to work for. And we’re having a really good time.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5, F4WOnline.com