News

MJF Lied To Get Indy Star Booked In AEW

By John Canton • Published 18th March 2023
mjf aew title shrug

MJF may have a reputation for being a jerk, but he’s also a good friend that looks out for his buddies in the business.

The AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman has held the company’s coveted championship since beating Jon Moxley at Full Gear in November 2022.

While MJF isn’t known for defending the AEW World Title that often, he recently had the best match of his career at Revolution when he found a way to defeat Bryan Danielson in an Iron Man Match to retain the World Championship. It was a 60-minute match that went five more minutes due to being tied after 60 minutes.

Prior to signing with AEW in 2019, AEW was wrestling regularly on the independent wrestling scene where he got to work with guys that have different levels of experience.

Rickey Shane Page is an indy wrestling veteran that has worked several AEW tapings. Rickey wrestled at the September 27th, 2021 episode of AEW Dark: Elevation at Arthur Ashe Stadium against Paul Wight in a match taped before Dynamite that night.

In an interview with Fightful, Rickey Shane Page talked about how his buddy MJF helped get him the booking in New York on that September 2021 show.

“That is a crazy story, just in general of how it came together. So that was the first Arthur Ashe show, so there was like 20,000 people there. Oh, were you? Yeah, it was wild. So the day before the show, MJF called me and he was like, ‘Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?’ I was like, ‘Nothing. Why?’ He was like, ‘Can you be in New York?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’ “

“I’m probably gonna get him in trouble, but he was like, ‘I told them you were in New York already, they need guys.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ So I went literally took a shower, spray tanned, packed my bag and just drove overnight to New York. I slept on Ethan Page’s hotel room floor and I woke up the next morning and I was having a free continental breakfast for a room that I didn’t have at the hotel. Thank you, Tony Khan.”

“I was eating and Aubrey, the ref, came up to me and she was like, ‘Oh, hey. Do you know what you’re doing today?’ I was like, ‘No.’ She’s like, ‘You’re wrestling Paul Wight.’ I was like, ‘Shut the fuck up. No, I’m not,’ and she was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ I was like, ‘Uh, okay.’ That’s literally how it happened. So shout out MJF. He’s always looking out for me. He’s the best. It was so cool. Paul’s great. He’s a super good brother.”

MJF celebrated his 27th birthday this past Wednesday on AEW Dynamite. He posted on Twitter about his new car.