The Fine Line Of AEW

By
Jim LaMotta
-

After last weekend’s controversy with MJF missing a scheduled autograph signing and thus fans had to be refunded the money they paid for the meet and greet, speculation swirled about his status for the Double or Nothing pay-per-view. The entire scenario was fueled by reports that Friedman was frustrated with his AEW contract and wanted a substantial raise to be on par with other top stars in the company.

MJF showed up to the pay-per-view and did the job he was contracted to do, as he was defeated in a rather one-sided match against Wardlow and was stretchered out of the arena.

Many assumed this was to write Friedman out of the program as either a way to give time for the contract dispute to be resolved or at least give the fans reason to believe he was being kept on the sidelines because of the backstage disagreement. Instead, MJF, not selling being carted from the ring just a few days earlier, cut a shoot-style promo on last night’s episode of Dynamite. Friedman made mention of the former WWE stars that were signed by the promotion, and made real-life references to Tony Khan as the boss of the company. Finally, he looked into the ringside camera and used more profanity that was censored by the delay and the show cut to commercial.

At this point, regardless if this whole situation started as legitimate or not, it’s blatantly obvious that it’s now a part of the work of the show.

It was too over-the-top and “too pro wrestling” to be legitimate. All Elite, the organization that tries to market itself as pro wrestling as a sport, used the playbook of a WCW Russo segment. If the MJF promo was real then the show would’ve went to commercial immediately. Why exactly would the show stay on the air and use the camera shot with MJF talking directly into it if it was a real segment, especially when the censored profanity tells the audience there was the traditional seven-second delay?

Furthermore, if the point of this angle is to say, “this is a real conflict,” what message does that send about every other segment on the show?

As I wrote about last week, this entire situation is a lose-lose scenario. There’s never a good excuse for knowingly not delivering on what the fans paid for, even if its just an autograph signing so if it was a work, it was completely counterproductive. Also, if this whole thing was planned, it didn’t benefit anyone. How did this stunt help sell the pay-per-view when the main point of the story was speculation that one of the featured matches might not happen? More importantly, this angle was designed to boost Wardlow to the next level, but the focus remained on MJF. If the no-show was a shoot, it didn’t do anyone any favors, either. If Friedman legitimately no-showed, he didn’t help his chances for a run in WWE. How much faith would Vince McMahon put in a competitor that walked out with almost two years left on his contract? Again, if the no-show was legitimate, it also makes All Elite look bad because they didn’t deliver what they advertised, how does that make AEW any better than the local indy that Greg Valentine didn’t show up for?

As I said, at this stage, it’s clearly a work, but the aftermath of all of this could do more harm than anything else.

Tony Khan is known as an ECW fan, which is fine in a vacuum, but trying the 90s wrestling tropes in 2022 is just tacky. Trying to get the fans to believe this could sour the good will that All Elite has with its fan base. Instead of MJF being viewed as the top heel of the future, he could unintentionally present himself as someone that was too desperate to try to be relevant instead of allowing his talent to do that for him. Some on social media have claimed that MJF tried to work a loose cannon gimmick, similar to Brian Pillman, but that’s almost a laughable comparison. The 90s era and the state of the business are what ultimately allowed Pillman to work him way into the biggest contract of his career when he signed with the WWF in 1996. We’ve had several years of WWE documentaries that exposed that the business is scripted so you can’t just retread something from almost 25 years old and expect it to be believable in the modern era.


In the past, I’ve heard some comparisons of MJF to Roddy Piper, and specifically “Piper in Portland” as a reference to his run in Don Owen’s territory. However, the promo on this week’s episode of Dynamite proved that MJF might be as one-dimensional as most of the other heels among the current sports entertainment landscape. Piper, who was very eccentric himself, once said in an RF video shoot interview years ago that if you have to use profanity in promos than it’s a lack of talent. Piper got heat with the content and the deliver of his promos. MJF’s best efforts to “make it real” was to use language that would usually get censored on television, and it was actually censored on television so what was accomplished?

Again, the whole story is using wrestling cliches to attempt to say “this is the real part of the show,” which dilutes the entire product.

Aside from making MJF look like a flimsy heel, the confirmation that this is at least now all a work could make Tony Khan look bad in the process, too. Don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said many times, you have to give Khan credit for being willing to invest in a pro wrestling company, especially when he didn’t have to because it definitely sparked the industry. At the same time, there’s a fine line between passion for the business and using the sport as a vanity project. Sure, there are times that Tony marks out for himself, but almost every promoter in the history of the business has done that at some point, it’s one of the perks of the job. However, if the fans think that Tony was involved in the swerve of the autograph session or purposely not assuring the audience that the MJF-Wardlow match would happen as scheduled, it could ruin a lot of the good will that the company has with the fans.


Finally, what’s the pay off?

How does this sell any tickets, pay-per-views, or draw better ratings for AEW? The fact that a portion of the audience was cheering MJF’s criticisms of Tony Khan might get the wrong type of heat for the promotion. It could also indirectly reinforce the criticism that Tony might simply be using this project to play Vince McMahon instead of being an actual promoter. When Tony sits at the post-PPV press conference next to the stars for two hours, it certainly looks like he’s trying to share the spotlight with the roster. Most importantly, if the fans start to agree with MJF about the amount of former WWE stars signed for the company, who gets the heat? Keep in mind, the AEW audience rejected Cody when they thought he was trying to use AEW to get himself over so it’s very possible that they could reject Tony Khan because of this situation.

What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.

Until next week
-Jim LaMotta

E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Twitter @jimlamotta

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR