Last month, MJF began his storyline with Adam Cole, which led to the AEW World Heavyweight Champion engaging in a 30-minute time-limit draw with him on the June 14 episode of Dynamite.
MJF defended his title against Hiroshi Tanahashi at AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door, and then against Ethan Page on the July 1 episode of AEW Collision.
On the July 5 episode of Dynamite, MJF and Cole were forced to work together after being paired in the Blind Tag Team Title Tournament for an AEW World Tag Team Championship match. They won the tournament by defeating The Jericho Appreciation Society (Daniel Garcia and Sammy Guevara) in the finals. They will now get a title shot on Collision on July 29, 2023.
AEW has been doing vignettes of them bonding together in recent weeks.
Dave Meltzer reported in the most recent issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the storyline has resulted in significant merchandise sales.
Meltzer wrote, “The MJF & Adam Cole T-shirt “Better than You Bay Bay” in the last few weeks since the release has sold more numbers of shirts than any AEW shirt has for all of 2023. It’s also the shirt that has been pushed harder than any shirt on the Dynamite show, particularly by MJF last week.”
The shirt is also the year’s second highest-grossing shirt, trailing only a higher-priced MJF button-down shirt.
