On the same night MJF announced his campaign to win the AEW title from CM Punk, maybe even during the backstage fight that would derail the trajectory of MJF’s career and the entire company, Chris Jericho did something controversial in his own right; he broke MJF’s kayfabe.
MJF’s well documented commitment to kayfabe feels pleasantly out of place in today’s wrestling climate. Where many have traded their mystique for shoot interviews, MJF has built a character in and out of the ring to the point where we have to contend with the fact we have no idea who MJF really is. Every vulnerable story he tells about his past makes you wonder if he’s being genuinely open, garnering sympathy or mocking the Marks who believe him
Almost every wrestler who’s been asked about MJF has been in on it, too. Wardlow, Dax Harwood, Eddie Kingston, and others have all made it clear that MJF is an arsehole in and out of the ring. Even when Punk gave MJF some praise he made it clear throw in a “fuck him” to make it clear where we stood on MJF as a person.
“I said to him 'when you come back, you're going to be a babyface.' He's like, 'I don't want to be a babyface, I don't want to be a babyface.' I was like, 'It's going to happen.' He's like, 'I don't know what to do,' and I said 'I'm sure The Rock said the same thing or Steve Austin said the same thing. You can do a babyface comeback. I'll teach you, it's easy.'
“I don’t know what to do” are words we’d never think MJF could say. It was the first time for me at least, that I saw MJF as a twenty six year old man struggling to deal with a character he cares deeply for, rather than seeing the character itself. In the weeks leading up to his match for the world championship with Jon Moxley, we could see Max working out in real time whether he should cater to the ever growing crowd that were cheering his name, or if he should stay the course as a heel.
As we know MJF stayed heel, won the title with William Regal’s help, turned on him and has since been having an almost-stellar run as the world champion. His feud with Bryan Danielson helped cement him as a heel, but his feud with the four pillars felt as if he was trying to limit his strengths to help the other three competitors hide their weaknesses. His recent match with Tanahashi had the crowd cheering more for him than The Ace of NJPW. No matter what MJF does, he can only stem the tide for so long. The crowd are booing MJF because they know he’s a prick, but do they want him to be? When he makes the crowd laugh, puts on incredible matches and brings the best out of every opponent he wrestles, it’s hard to let being called a stupid hillbilly really get in the way of appreciating and loving their presence.
On the other side of the coin, we have the man who took MJF into the greatest feud of his career (and my personal favourite in AEW’s history) CM Punk. A babyface who has polarised the entire AEW fandom due to the actions on the very same night MJF returned. He’s finally back on a new show built round him and from what we can tell, his vision for wrestling is at the forefront of the show. AEW Collision. The same way MJF feels like he’s denying the crowd to cheer, Punk feels like he’s waiting for the perfect moment to get the entire crowd to boo.
While Bret Hart’s most famous match is the Montreal Screwjob, his magnum opus has always been his match against Stone Cold at Wrestlemania 13. The legendary ‘Double Turn’ where the increasingly booed Bret Hart and the increasingly cheered Stone Cold finally let the crowd swap who to who to support and disparage in one fell swoop.
“I don’t know what to do”
“It’s easy, I’ll show you”
On last Saturday’s AEW Collision Punk belittled Max’s belt and accomplishments as a champion. That same night MJF fought twice and even defended his championship against Ethan Page after being challenged on the principle of ‘respect’. MJF won that match clean. These are the seeds being sewn, and it’s not a coincidence that defence was on CM Punk’s show, Collision.
Who better to trust with becoming a face on the level of Stone Cold than the man who loves Bret Hart more than anyone in the world who isn’t bald with a podcast? Who took you from a Midcard heel to a main event player? Who’s better in the wrestling world right now at revelling and maximising the boos and cheers of a split crowd? Right now there’s no better guiding light to becoming a babyface for MJF than CM Punk, and there’s no better moment to fully turn heel for Punk than MJF.
I’m confident that when the time comes, they’ll know what to do.