AEW needed a boost.
Enter MJF.
After a long hiatus to nurse his injuries, Maxwell Jacob Friedman returned to AEW to deal with Adam Cole and to signify his allegiance.
For most of 2023, MJF has carried the promotion as its top star. In fact, on their biggest pay-per-view, All-Out held in Wembley Stadium, he fought in the pre-show with Cole and against him in the main event. Until Cole's betrayal, he was both a champion and a tag team champion, acting as both a serious champion and a comedy character, averaging at least 20 minutes per show.
After a questionable video package, he marched down wearing a jacket that's probably a homage to Triple H, hugged Cole, low-blows him, and then mouthed a lot of insults, elbow-dropped his devil mask, name-dropped Vince McMahon, and cursed to end his segment.
Nice.
Anytime I see MJF, especially this version, I thumb it up.
With that said, what the hell are they doing with Adam Cole?
For some reason, this reminded me of when Jinder Mahal ranted in 2024, and then The Rock came out to destroy him. Where were his Undisputed Kingdom goons? Maybe it's better for Cole just to come out to help Roderick Strong after losing the title to Will Ospreay to set up the promo.
Adam Cole has to be the biggest WWE to AEW bust. In WWE, he had muscle mass, was taken care of, and was protected. If this were NXT, Cole would have been the final boss with Bobby Fish, Kyle O'Reilly, or the aforementioned Strong taking the bumps.
In some ways, Cole would have just waited for Vince to get off WWE. Remember when Cole was initially seen as Keith Lee's manager with a different ring name? Had he stuck, he could have had the thing LA Knight has at the moment - probably the Raw version, as basically the lite version of Seth Rollins.
Placing Cole in a predicament where he is vulnerable is basically what they did with Kenny Omega a few weeks back. Yes, AEW doesn't care much about heels and faces, but while Omega has been booted out from The Elite, Cole is still the leader of the Undisputed Kingdom. Wardlow could have been the next-to-perfect barrier. Maybe MJF can just stay in the ramp, with a hint of hesitation because of the UK's presence, and say the same shtick that he said.
This could have been their version of CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre, but they just finished the devil storyline at that moment, in just about five minutes. How long is Cole going to be out, anyway? Can we trust Cole to continue this feud? Is that the reason why they just fed him to MJF just like that?
If that is the case, then MJF needs to have a new rivalry. The most obvious route is The New Elite, with MJF (de facto) representing the company he pledged upon. Or perhaps he can headhunt the people that wronged him like Samoa Joe. But if he's going to veer away from these folks, then he needs to get back his title - with Swerve becoming a fresh feud for him to delve into.
AEW's business just picked up because of one man. I don't know if he can get the help he needs, but hopefully, he does well enough to take the ratings out to the 600k to 700k range.