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After 20 years, AEW's MVP is all too happy to put you up on game (but only if you ask nicely)

Posted: Sep 19th 2025 By: Cameron Hawkins

It’s late May 2023, WrestleMania week in Los Angeles. The city’s Sirius Studios are hosting one human giant, two blue-chippers, an NFL veteran and a former marine — Omos, Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes, AJ Francis and Tehuti Miles, respectively — for DJ Whoo Kid’s radio show. These five men, all with their futures in front of them, spend a good amount of time huddled around Montel Vontavious Porter, better known as MVP. It’s the biggest spot any of them has done to date, a chance to showcase musical prowess in front of one the world’s biggest DJs. But they all, at some point, defer to Porter, who coaches them up on how to present themselves and what spots like this can mean long term.

You can’t be all things to all people, but what you can be is the most helpful, thorough version of yourself. More than two years after that WrestleMania week, with his contemporaries Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley now alongside him in AEW, Porter’s player/coach profile sits at its highest point — a veteran who can speak from highs, lows and all the hard work in between. “It's humbling and it's flattering to know that I've had that influence on these young men," Porter tells Uncrowned. "I joke around about it being a backhanded compliment, but I have grown-ass men with full beards coming up to me saying, ‘Oh man, you were my childhood, man. I watched you when I was a kid.’

"I've never been the WWE world champion. I've never been the guy. But brother, I've been here making money in this space for over 20 years. From the time I got to WWE [in 2005] until now, I have not had an income source or I haven't had a job outside of wrestling. So I have longevity. I know how to do this, and I know how to do it well. And I'll put you up on game if you ask me for it.”

Porter's next lesson is set for Saturday at AEW All Out, where he and his Hurt Syndicate brethren face Ricochet and Gates of Agony in a six-man tag match that came to fruition after the trio interrupted The Hurt Syndicate’s triple-threat AEW Tag Team Championship match in August at Forbidden Door, ultimately costing it the title. There’s an excitement in his words as Porter discusses talents like Bishop Kaun and Toa Liona, who have spent the past three years building their tag-team résumés.

“Gates of Agony are two guys that I see money in," Porter says.

"The first thing is they pass the airport test. When you see Bishop Khan and Toa, you see those guys walking, you just see them and you look at them and go, ‘I don't know who they are, but they're somebody. They do something.’ And seeing as how there are three of them and there are three of us, it seemed like just the right time to lace the boots up.”

Between Porter and Ricochet, it's more of an uncle/nephew relationship, both in long-term communication and the desire to make sure Ricochet knows there’s still more to be learned. But Porter has been both a fan and an honest critic of Ricochet, and it looks like it may be time to really put him to the test. “He's always been somebody that I thought very highly of. And we even joked about it when he was on my podcast," Porter says. "When he was super hot and was doing all this amazing aerial stuff, I told him, ‘When you learn how to work, you're going to be good.' He gets hot at me. But all these years later, looking back, he goes, ‘Now I understand what you were saying.'

“Ricochet was talking all that old-head’ s*** [in the lead-up to AEW All Out]," he continues. "OK, let me show you. Beware the old man's strength. I'm going to punch you right in your mouth, Ricochet. I do jiu-jitsu. I'm a grappler, I'm a wrestler. I'm going to keep you from flying. As long as I can keep you from going aerial, you can't beat me. And I'm looking forward to it.”

When Porter hit WWE’s main roster 20 years ago, he did so with one of the most polarizing gimmicks of the time. His debut came months after the rocky work-marriage ended between Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb and all-time great wide receiver Terrell Owens. Owens, who had willed himself to an MVP-worthy Super Bowl performance on one leg, was accused of splintering the locker room, leading to his release and subsequent signing with the entertainment-over-everything Dallas Cowboys. And so Porter channeled Owens — along with the other diva-esque athletes of that time — into WWE's arrogant, annoying and self-assured villain. He argued with "SmackDown" on-screen general manager Teddy Long over the particulars of his contract, he wore expensive and gaudy jewelry, and even wrestled in an Under Armour-inspired singlet. He found himself across from WWE's heavy-hitters early and often, having high-profile matches across the promotion's pay-per-view schedule all throughout his rookie year, working with so many wrestling legends he can't even attempt to nail down a favorite.

“[It’s like asking] what was your favorite breath that you ever took?" he says. "... I worked with The Undertaker. I worked with Ric Flair. I worked with Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy. ... It was just exhilarating to show up and, 'Hey, you're going to be in an Inferno Match with Kane.'

"I had the honor of wrestling with Ric Flair at the Royal Rumble at Madison Square Garden. Even before that, in Houston, the Night of Champions, I defended the United States Championship against Ric Flair. I hit him with a thumb to the eye and was able to beat him. He was cool enough to do the honors and put me over, and allow me to out-dirty the dirtiest player in the game.”

What was bigger than those feuds, though, was learning the game itself. With all of his rapid success, it would've been easy to ignore advice from the people who were around before him, but Porter understood the people who'd been around and stayed around were important supporters to lean on.

“Guys like Booker T put me up on game," he says. "Norman Smiley was a huge benefactor to me, a mentor. Big Daddy V was a guy that pulled me aside one day and used to put game in my ear. So because it was given to me, I learned a long time ago to pay it forward. And when these young guys come up and they ask me, ‘Hey, MVP, can I ask you a question? Can I sit up under your learning tree?' I'm all too happy to give the game away because the game was given to me.

"The average career is five, six, seven years. People come through, they make some money, they're on TV, and if they don't take care of their money, they're selling insurance or selling cars or something like that. But I've been fortunate that I've learned a lot and I've applied what I've learned to be able to make money in this space, so that I'm not one of those guys that's a sad story after the fact.”

One of the big things Porter learned was when and where to take chances. Although he never reached world title status in WWE, there were signs that he was looked at as on-par with the talents at the top of the card. One was the infamous WWE roster photo spread from 2008, littered with Hall of Famers and main-eventers galore. From that picture, the only men to never win a WWE World Championship were the late Umaga, who passed away at age 36; Fit Finlay, who was a well-respected, well-decorated 20-year veteran; and Porter, who had only been in WWE two years. “I didn't really understand what was going on, but I started to figure things out when they did that issue of WWE Magazine," Porter recalls.

"It was that fold-out cover and I was on it, and I saw everybody else that was on the cover — and I went, ‘Oh, they got me with these people.’”

There was something about the cocky but cool character Porter presented that carried him into featuring in prominent storylines over his WWE tenure, winning the United States Championship twice and the Tag Team Championship once alongside Matt Hardy. But when it came time to re-sign in late 2010, Porter was ready to take his biggest risk to date — testing the waters outside of WWE.

“I was burned out, man," he says. "I lost my passion for wrestling, and I didn't want to be a superstar anymore. I wanted to be a professional wrestler.

"I have nothing but appreciation and respect for WWE and everything that I was able to accomplish there and everything that my time there afforded me. But I used to say, WWE was a huge, big-budget, Hollywood blockbuster movie with all the special effects, and to me, wrestling in Japan was like wrestling on Broadway. It was theater. You didn't have all the bells and the whistles to help get you over. You had to go out there in front of those people who appreciate wrestling and wrestling ability — as they like to say, work rate. And that's what I wanted to do.”

And so Porter took his talents to New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he tested his mettle against the likes of Tomohiro Ishii, Shinsuke Nakamura and many others. He earned the distinction of becoming the first IWGP Intercontinental Champion, and remains to this day the only American to ever hold the title. “I never wanted to be a guy that was showing up for a check," he says. "And lots of guys through the years, I saw them just showing up with a check, being miserable, showing up for the money. So I took a massive pay cut to go to New Japan, but I was happy again. I was loving it. And I was going out there and I'm wrestling with [Hiroshi] Tanahashi and I'm wrestling with Masado Tanaka and guys that I watched and studied.”

While wrestling has afforded Porter a good life, he’s aware that not everyone has had the same blessing. At 16 years old, Porter was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to almost 10 years in prison. That time both created and hampered his time in the industry. While incarcerated, he met corrections officer and independent wrestler Prime Time Daryl D, who reached out to Porter after his prison time and helped him get started in the business. Yet throughout his run with WWE and now AEW, there are still places Porter can’t travel due to his criminal record.

He knows that while there are limits, there are also plenty of chances to leave his mark on people who appreciate his story and experiences

"The first TED Talk [I did] was, ‘When do I stop paying?’" Porter says. "We say when you commit a crime, you go to prison, you pay your debt to society. But the problem is when you get out of prison, you're a convicted felon. So if you want to go get a job, there's that box — have you been convicted of a felony? And a lot of people won't hire you. [Same] if you want housing, certain apartment complexes.

"Our social contract says I paid my debt to society, but I'm still paying. I've been to England dozens of times, but because of [England's new electronic travel authorization] procedure, I wasn't allowed [at a recent AEW event] because of a crime I committed when I was 16 years old that I spent almost a decade in prison for.”

Porter’s goal is to bring attention these issues. “Even now, I'm MVP. Kids play with my action figures. I've been in movies and television shows, and I'm on TV every week, but I'm still paying," he says.

"What if you're Joe Smith and you don't have that platform, and you just want a job and you want a place to live? So I felt that I was able to use that platform to bring attention to this, to say, ‘Hey, there's something going on here that we need to take a look at.’ So it means the world to me that, because of the life I've lived and because of the experiences that I've had, people will listen to what I have to say.”

Creatively, Porter's career peak came upon his return to WWE in 2020. Alongside acts like The Bloodline, Bayley and Sasha Banks, Seth Rollins and others, he found ways to flesh out characters in the empty arena days of the pandemic. Porter, Benjamin, Lashey and Cedric Alexander formed “The Hurt Business,” a well-dressed, well-traveled and tough-as-hell quartet that became the overarching physical force on "WWE Raw." Influenced by acts like one of Porter’s wrestling idols, NJPW legend Masahiro Chono, they sported tailored suits, wore shades indoors and beat people down out of necessity — or other times as payment, leaning into the Yakuza motif and aggression that carried Chono to superstardom.

Porter, who helped Lashley maximize his time in TNA before he returned to WWE, looked to help elevate Benjamin and Alexander as well. Lashley ultimately secured the WWE Championship, and Benjamin and Alexander won the "Raw" tag-team titles, with Porter pulling double duty as an in-ring competitor and the crew’s main mouthpiece. “Shelton Benjamin is one of my best friends. We live less than five minutes from each other, and we have been tight for a long time," he says. "Bobby and I, we made money across three different companies, across different countries. A lot of people don't know, when I was in New Japan and they told me I needed a tag-team partner, I called Shelton. So part of why our group works so well is because it's organic. These are really my boys, and they also understand how the business works.”
Photo via AEW
AEW stars (left to right) MJF, Bobby Lashley, MVP and Shelton Benjamin. (Photo via AEW)

The Hurt Business saw its run start to plateau as the world opened back up post-pandemic, with its creative push, as a unit, dwindling around WrestleMania 37 as Lashley in-story excommunicated Benjamin and Alexander from the group. Over the following two years, they teased reunions and reformations, but nothing really developed until each of the four men left the company.

Porter became the first to appear on AEW television in September 2024, with Benjamin and Lashley following suit soon after. Now dubbed The Hurt Syndicate, another homage to Japanese news and films of organized crime, it expressed a desire to put everyone on notice that it would become AEW’s truest proving ground. Porter, along with 4th Rope owners/curators Westside Gunn and Smoke DZA, even created the entrance theme that doubled as the Syndicate’s calling card: “We Hurt People.”

And while the group has since teamed to win tag-team gold in AEW, there’s an understanding that both Benjamin and Lashley are looking to make their mark in the singles division, with Porter there to help facilitate that advancement. “To be in a position where I could help elevate Bobby to a level that he should have been on, and to hopefully continue to help elevate Shelton to a level, it means the world to me," Porter says. "Because like I said, these are genuinely my guys. And I think Shelton was a guy that was criminally overlooked, I mean, criminally overlooked and underrated during his run with WWE.

"So at the end of the day, I'm making money hanging out with my friends.”

As he heads into All Out with those friends by his side, there’s no delusion to where Porter stands and what he’s facing. After 20 years, MVP has more matches behind him than in front of him.

He admits he’s begun thinking about the right exit strategy, and while it may be a ways off, Porter plans on giving the game away one more time to someone deserving, in the right place, at the right time.

“I've talked to Tony Khan about this, and he's a great guy to work for, and I enjoy the relationship that I've developed with him," Porter says. "I told him that I'm not retired yet, but at some point I would like to have a feud with someone that I can have the good old-fashioned 'if I lose, I'll retire' angle, so I can go out on my back and give some young, deserving and willing talent the opportunity to say, ‘I retired MVP.'

"Right now, there are so many talented guys that I respect that I think are awesome, but I don't have anybody [picked out], because, like I said, I'm not ready to retire yet.”