MJF Blasts Former AEW Rival For Ruining Feud
MJF had some harsh words for an AEW wrestler with whom he had a long feud.
Former AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman is known for being one of the biggest villains in AEW’s six-year history. However, there was a time when he was a beloved figure.
When MJF was the AEW World Champion in 2023, he was cheered by fans, in part thanks to his friendship with Adam Cole. Since Friedman made it known that it was tough for him to make friends, fans were happy to see Cole bring out the best in Max.
The MJF-Cole friendship led to the duo headlining AEW All In 2023, which is the biggest show in company history, with over 80,000 fans in attendance at Wembley Stadium. Max retained his title. Fans expected a heel turn at some point, but Adam Cole broke his ankle soon after. While Cole did form a stable and turn heel, it just wasn’t the same since he was unable to wrestle for about a year.
In an interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, MJF spoke about the success of his feud with Cole and what went wrong.
“Here’s what happened. At the time, and this is just a fact, we were the highest minute-for-minute drawing angle, not just in AEW, but in all of professional wrestling at that point. We were moving the most merch in the company.
At that point, and was to no fault, Bloodline’s going to go down as one of the greatest long-term thing, but at that point there was a bit of lull in their story at that point in 2023, and we had taken lead and Better Than You Baybay is what everybody was talking about and then that pu**y Adam Cole broke his ankle like the complete dork that he is and then he decided to turn on me because he’s a horrible human being.
But I learned a lot in that in that year I learned a lot about myself you know when I when I was out—full disclosure I was in a very dark place.”
MJF Dealt With Injuries As AEW World Champion
The reality is that if Adam Cole didn’t break his ankle when he did, then his feud with MJF would have been a lot more than it was. MJF ended up losing the AEW World Title to Samoa Joe at Worlds End 2023. After that, Friedman was away from the ring for about half a year before returning to his heel roots.
“It was my hip, my left shoulder; my last two pay-per-view matches—pretty much the left side of my body was useless. But I wasn’t going to tell the doctors that because that’s not how I was brought up. In not just in real life, but in this business. When I had that time off, I had a lot of time to reflect and it made me angry.
Now I look back on it and I shouldn’t have been angry at the fans. Who I should have been angry was that myself. Because I went from being, ‘MJF is the best thing since sliced bread,’ and within a flip of a switch, ‘It’s MJF sucks. He’s killing this company that we love.’
It took, if we’re being honest, it took all the way into like the first month of this year of 2025 for everybody to be like, ‘Maybe we were harsh. Maybe he’s actually still one of the best in the world.’
They can’t help it. But I know why. It’s because nobody likes a braggart. But the unfortunate thing is I can’t help myself. I’m just really good at my job and I can’t help but talk about it.”
Two years after losing the AEW World Title to Samoa Joe at Worlds End, MJF will challenge for the AEW World Title 2025 at Worlds End on December 27th as he takes on the champion Joe, along with former World Champions Swerve Strickland and “Hangman” Adam Page in a 4-way match.