2019 Was The Start of Something Special
On March 26, 2001 Vince McMahon made a history purchase when he bought WCW. It changed the landscape of wrestling because WCW was his only legitimate competition at the time, and there would be no real competition until January 2019. In 2019 another promotion was created, All Elite Wrestling is a promotion that was created by wrestlers for the love of wrestling and although they did not intend on being competition for WWE, it inadvertently did, but that’s another story for a different time. AEW hopped on the scene and quickly made a name for itself by being the wrestling promotion for everybody.
With AEW you have wrestlers that are considered legends in the industry like Dustin Rhodes and Chris Jericho), Indy Stars like The Elite and SCU, and if you are an MMA fan you even had Jake Hagar as a familiar face that will keep you invested. With all of this the thing that truly made AEW special was the young unknown stars. Young stars like Jungleboy Jack Perry, Dr Britt Baker D.M.D, Darby Allen, Sammy Guevara, and perhaps the biggest young Star out of the group Maxwell Jacob Friedman “MJF”.
On The Rise
If you asked Wrestling fans today who MJF is you will get several reactions from love to pure hatred at just the mention of his name, but you will know find out two very distinct things:
He’s an a**hole
Everyone knows who he is
And that’s because both of those facts are undeniable, but it wasn’t always this way. Rewind to October 2, 2019 if you were to ask the same question the answer would be more resounding and vastly different. “Ain’t that Cody’s boy?” or “the young dude in the Elite.” would be typical answers from the new fans with a few die hards calling him and a**hole heel and don’t know why he’s with the elite, and that’s because it’s true. MJF at the start of AEW dynamite was a young new wrestler to the masses living in the shadow of the elite and Cody Rhodes, and it stay that way until Full Gear 2019 - This will be important later- as he turned on his friend and mentor costing Cody a chance to compete for the AEW World Title for the rest of his career. And boy when I tell you this was the start of his meteoric rise, this isn’t even his highlight moment in his career. You would think that making it so another competitor could never wrestle for the biggest title in the promotion no matter how over they are is bad (and it is probably the worst thing he’s done), but it has been outshadowed by formulating one of the best stables in AEW, teaming up and having a musical number with Chris Jericho, cutting some of the best promos, waging psychological warfare on CM Punk, openly boast about being on the open market in 2024, and cursing out his boss on national television. This guy has done a lot and he’s just getting started.
At the Precipice of it all
As we come back to the present, we see how he can garner so much love and hate at the same time. As a Heel he has been one of the best in the game, captivating audiences and drawing heat (which is what a heel should do), and with his accomplished resume so far he has added actor to his list. And no it’s not a cameo part or playing wrestler number 1 although he is portraying a wrestler. MJF will be in a movie called “The Iron Claw” . It is a biopic about the Von Erichs, and his role is pretty important. It stars Zac Effron as Kevin Von Erich and Maxwell is playing Lance Von Erich. Now the role is important in the legacy of the Von Erichs, but we are uncertain of how much of a role or screen time he will get. With this movie he joins the likes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena, and Dave Bautista, and if he does well the sky will be the limit for this young superstar. With this news breaking you would guess that this will be one of the biggest, most important thing going for him, but your guess would be wrong. Because on Saturday November 19, 2022 at Full Gear -see how it came full circle- MJF will be facing off against John Moxley (formally Dean Ambrose) for the AEW World Title. With this it will be one of the two things he never done in his career with the second is him turning face (the good guy), but both things are expected to happen at full gear. Over the last year or so Maxwell has been over with the fans (Being over means that the fans love and cheer for him) as a heel, but following his story structure the fans have seen a change in character for the good.
Beyond The Pale
This may very well be the hardest test for MJF and AEW. AEW has had issue with a face being champion, faces championship run has been lackluster with Jurassic Express (tag champs), Thunder Rosa (Women’s world champion), and Hangman Adam Page (AEW champion) and for them to turn someone as vulgar, abrasive, and mean face is a challenge all to itself. But looking at the young career of MJF who has done almost everything in wrestling and done it so superbly in a short time, this will be just another notch on his belt… The AEW World Championship belt.
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