 What's good, Josh? We're all back again with another video. So we're going to check out why AEW has a huge MJF problem by Sportskeeda wrestling. This should be very interesting, but we're going to see what he has to say about this. Appreciate all the love and support you guys shown on channel. Skin to it easily, easily the most complete pro wrestler on the planet. It's been almost a year since MJF won the AEW World Championship from John Moxley at Full Gear 2022. And quite frankly, it's been an entertaining title raid. He started as a despicable villain, and now he's completely embraced his new role as a very charismatic baby face. Yeah, he's our scum back now. Although he claims to start a bidding war in 2024 between AEW and WWE, Maxwell Jacob Friedman truly has become the MVP of all elite wrestling. In the last year, he defended his title against veterans like Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole and Samoa Joe and also faced new young stars like Ricky Starks. However, many feel that AEW has not been able to build new credible opponents who could match up to MJF and carry AEW on their backs the way he has. He says no one is on the level of the devil. And maybe that's the problem. Maxwell Jacob Friedman has always been a protected guy. The moment he showed up for his first AEW show, Doubler Nothing 2019, fans knew that he was going to be a huge star from the get-go. AEW booked him like one. He even had a moment with Bret the Hitman Hart on that Doubler Nothing card. So yeah, he was meant to be a future world champion. He was instantly clicking with the audience, his exceptional microphone skills and ability to insult people on a level that once again makes him like the devil made him super must see television. He developed a reputation is one of the best. And I think him as a heel is just so good. I know you can transition him to a baby face at some point, but I just feel like his heel run could have been extended a little bit longer because him as a heel you love to see him out there, but you also want to see him get his ass kicked. You know, I'm saying you love to see him talk trash about other wrestlers, but at the same time, you still want him to get beat up like he's that good of making you care about what's happening, what's being said in a ring, especially as a heel cleanse in the wrestling business, not just AEW and he was effective at making the audience dislike him. Yeah, they don't like you. They want to see someone beat you up. There we go. He was paired with Cody Rhodes during the first few months, but this partnership was short lived as Max screwed Cody out of the AEW World Championship at full year 2019 and even went on to defeat him at Revolution 2020. So yeah, AEW really wanted you to know that this was their guy. If you're working with Cody, they expect a lot of you. He hired Wardlow as his bodyguard who helped him win matches and it worked out for his character. It was classic 80s wrestling village in the modern times and MJF was hitting it out of the park. Following this, he faced John Moxley for the AEW World Championship, but was unsuccessful in capturing the title. Just a year after making his debut, he was challenging for the World Championship. This is when his program with the legendary Chris Jericho got going. Remember La dinner debonair? Yeah, it was great. Wasn't it a singing entertaining segment? Yes, singing show biz glitz and glamour Broadway with body slams. It was such a famous segment. It got written up in mainstream media became one of the most entertaining things that was going on in pro wrestling at that time and this allowed MJF to show his versatility as a performer with the singing and dancing along with Jericho that added depth to his character. Jericho was able to survive MJF's labors of Jericho to get the match he wanted and who would be the dirtiest player in the game? Who would use their baseball bat? Not Jericho. MJF couldn't even get away with hitting him with his dynamite diamond ring, but MJF used Jericho's Judas effect on him and shockingly humble Jericho winning by submission up until 2021. Max had already become a certified main event star rocketing to that level. Having won the dynamite diamond ring that we mentioned earlier, a ring he still has to this date. He also defeated young stars like Sammy Guevara, Jungle Boy Jack Perry and Darby Allen in big featured matches and fans were patiently waiting for AEW to give him the world title that many thought we knew it was coming before he could win that championship though. He had to face the biggest challenge of his career. CM punk punk made his debut in this was such a great huge so good so good. AEW in August of 2021 and within a few months, Max stepped up to the best in the world to prove that maybe he was better. Both Max and punk are known for exceptional promos and that's what we got from both of these guys together. So good stood in the ring for the first time and traded verbal jabs and it was absolutely electric maybe one of the best modern talking segments and wrestling at the time. But there was a long bill leading up to their first match which was in February of 2022 on an addition of dynamite and punks hometown of Chicago. I saw this match. It was absolutely classic live in the Win Trust arena. MJF got the win sneaking by with the assist of Wardlow. However, that MJF Wardlow allegiance would not last long revolution on March 6 punk got the win in a dog collar match because Warlow didn't want to help MJF this time. This is when they had Wardlow was he was reaching that peak of the next big star in the company. He was there. This is peak Wardlow right here. He was there. They were waiting for him to turn on MJF and when he finally did this was it and we know how that all played out a bloodied and sweaty punk with a dog collar chain around his neck walked out victorious and MJF walked out furious. He started an instant feud with his now former bodyguard Wardlow and absolutely got destroyed by him at double or nothing, but there was a lot of other things going on off screen that had more people talking than the match itself. Yeah, Wardlow may have wanted to be the man of the night, but the man of the weekend in Las Vegas for double or nothing was MJF as he left fans speculating about his future. There were reports that he wasn't happy with his contract. He was performing as big as other people in the company wanted to raise and eventually got it. But that didn't mean before then that he wasn't so upset that he didn't want to appear as scheduled and advertised at an AEW fan fest in Las Vegas for fans that traveled into the show that weekend leaving fans speculating about what would happen. Would he even show up? But he did. And he put Wardlow over the next week on AEW Dynamite. Max came out and delivered a scathing promo verbally destroyed AEW president and owner Tony Khan calling him a f**king mark. No, he died. Still one of the craziest work shoot promos of all time, bro. Like he eviscerated Tony Khan and let out all his grievances. People call this the pipe bomb 2.0 the modern day pipe bomb. For sure. Spromo will live in infamy for sure. That's the boss, the billion dollar boss of your company. The guy who signs your checks. You're willing to take those digs at him. You're bound for something or you got a whole big set on you. That was AEW's version of a pipe bomb and it wasn't seeing punk delivery. No, it was MJF and fans kind of knew this was a storyline thing. Following this, MJF was gone from the company for a couple of months around this time. Max's former rival CM Punk was crowned the AEW World Champion. Initially, the reported plan was for MJF to be the man to come back and dethrone punk and all out 2022. MJF made his big return under a mask with the help of the firm faction to win the casino ladder match. The big reveal that he was the masked devil man at the end of the show didn't mean anything because no one was talking about that. No, unfortunately, the controversial out media scrum where CM Punk went on a verbal shooting tirade against AEW. It's executive vice presidents Kenny Omega and the young box. There was a fight backstage that ensued. Punk got injured in the match that night with John Moxley where he won the world title. He was injured. He was also suspended. The consequences of this were that he had to be stripped of the AEW World title and MJF was not going to get that big world title match with CM Punk. John Moxley stepped up to become the new champion, the interim champion. Mox had already defeated MJF for the AEW World title in 2020, but this was a different time. MJF was ready to be the top star around this time. MJF started getting full fan support. His transformation into a fan favorite and a full fledged babyface is still iffy. He still has his edges, but he finds a way to get the audience to react to everything else he's doing. And it was solidified in an unforgettable promo with Mox's mentor, William Regal, which turned him into the audience full fledged babyface favorite. However, he was still the salt of the earth who is doing all he could to still remain a despicable hill, but it didn't matter. We all knew it was his time. It's time to put the championship on him. Everyone wanted him to be, you know, the, well, I wouldn't say everyone, but a lot of people wanted him to be the AEW World champion. It was, it was time. It didn't matter what John Moxley did. They only wanted MJF to be the guy. Alted the audience at every chance he got at full gear 2022 max faced mox for the AEW World title. Fans expected MJF to win the title here, but the way he won it really shocked some fans. William Regal, the man who is instrumental and mox his career, screwed him and helped MJF win the title. We all thought that MJF would use some nefarious cheating ways to do that. And just like that, MJF was a full blown villain again. It was a controversial decision as AEW could have used the opportunity to turn him into one of the biggest heroes in modern wrestling. But you can't deny the villainy heat that's there. You can't snarling devil that MJF can be. And that's what he was when he became the World Champion. The next time we saw him on AEW Dynamite, he dropped William Regal. He got bad habits. His William Regals final appearance in AEW. Yeah. Never trust the devil, right? And that's how he started his title reign. His first challenger was Ricky Starks, a young up-and-coming star who, like MJF, proved himself on the microphone and was ready for that next level. He absolutely embarrassed Max in a promo battle. This was good, too. Except CM Punk had done that in AEW, was able to outmatch Max on the microphone. But Starks did it, which told fans he could be one to carry the company on his back home. Yeah, and this was really promising. I'm like, okay, they're going with Ricky Starks. People want to see Ricky Starks in that, in that type of situation. So this was very entertaining. I was loving this. Longside MJF. Obviously, it wasn't time for Starks to win the title and Max was able to, once again, sleek by a really tough challenge, but he moved on to maybe an even tougher challenge. The best technical wrestler in the world, Brian Danielson. This was good, too. Max also defeated the American Dragon in a five star well-received 60-minute Iron Man match classic at Revolution 2023. Maybe the best match of his career. Following this, it proved that he wasn't just a guy on the microphone who could have some good matches, but he's a guy on the microphone who can have some great match. I still think they should have did like a series out of that. I think that Iron Man match should have been the last of their matches, but at least they could have gotten one more match out of it. Like, you know, the first match between him and MJF, obviously MJF, you know, kind of changed to win. There's something screwy, some screwy finish. And then you could have did a Iron Man and 60 minute Iron Man match or something like that. You could have did something. I would have extended the feud and had the last match between these two guys at the time, the Iron Man match because I think it's worth a few being built, not just one and done. So as MJF was weaving his way through Jungle Jack, Perry, Sammy Guevara, Dardi Allen, Hiroshi, Ethan Page, and Samoa Joe. He developed a friendship with a recently acquired big name in AEW, Adam Cole, baby, and eventually became a fan favorite together for which this actually surprisingly worked. It worked really well. People were buying into the better than you, baby, what they had going on. It was working. The fans had been clamoring to see for months. Many feel that he should have been a good guy when he started his world title reign. But hey, me on the other hand, I get it. Come on. You got to chase the bad guy with the belt. Regardless of that, it has been established that he is one of the most protected guys in AEW. Yeah, he's a world champion. Yeah. It has made it clear that he is the man to beat. But there is a big question. Who should be the one to beat him? Because let's face it, they haven't really built up any stars that seem like they have that momentum to take the big, old Burgundy belt from his waist. Of course, the safe route is just to have established names like Moxley, Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, Jericho, Brian Danielson, or maybe even Adam Copeland, you know? You know him as Edge. Have him come over and take the title. And while it could work, staying safe is not the way to go. Having an established name or a former WWE superstar win the AEW championship itself isn't what the company needs. They need some new stars. They need this belt change to make the person who makes that change. And it should be someone who is taken up to MJF's level, get level with the devil. And the first name that comes to mind is Ricky Starks. MJF's feud with Ricky was short, but it was eccentric. Yeah, what both men can do and they can revisit it anytime they want. I hope they do their roles reversed. Yeah, being someone who's cheered and Ricky Starks being someone who's booed. Yeah, the roles have reversed. And I would love to see that because now he's he's different now. He's going to approach the match much more differently. So because he's a heel. So that that could be something that they really really do as well. But let's ask yourself, is Starks ready for the world title? No. Yes. AEW can build a few months around him. Well, not right now. They can do it, but they got to be consistent with it. They can. I'm not saying they can't be happy. But now no, he's not ready. A threat to Max's title range. And given the fact that Starks is a villain here, it makes a lot of sense. The character change would work, but the company had an opportunity to build him into a legit star after his feud with Max earlier this year. But instead he had a repetitive feud with Chris Jericho, which was interesting and got destroyed by Brian Danison. And he's not popular right now. He's not as popular as MJF. And it just maybe just doesn't feel like the right time. Sorry, Ricky. Darby Allen is another man who can defeat MJF. But his push in AEW has been inconsistent. Those matches have been violently entertaining and having the icon Sting at his side would be pretty cool. Sting is set to retire in February 2023 and that's going to be something big at Revolution and maybe Darby is going to be busy with that. MJF has already pinned him earlier this year at the Double or Nothing event. And it looks like AEW has no intentions of maybe putting him back in the World Title scene anytime soon now that he's busy, you know, contending with Nick Wayne and Christian Cage. Same as Sammy Guevara, who's feud with Chris Jericho is another one that's going to keep him away from the World Title. Another young star who has been pushed by AEW is Jungle Jack Perry, who's suspended right now for that whole thing at AEW all in with CM Punk in London. And it's unlikely he's going to come right back and be in the World Title scene. It's not going to be him. MJF will defend his World Title against Jay White, a real challenger from New Japan Pro Wrestling who's joined the AEW ranks at the upcoming Full Gear event. And while Jay has made a name for himself in the Tokyo Dome and being considered one of the most critically acclaimed wrestlers, he's relatively new for the AEW fan base. And many people are doubting that Jay White is going to be so sweet, maybe even too sweet, to take the title from MJF. I don't see it yet. Yeah, sorry, Bullet Club fans. It doesn't feel like the title switch blade is going to be turned on. What about the man that made MJF into a baby face? And this could be good. Have the rose switch. Have it all be a ruse to finally get him to drop his guard. And then you could possibly take the title from him. And a lot of people have speculated, have Adam Cole turn on it? It would work. Adam Cole has always been better as a heel. He works better as a heel. It makes sense for him to be a heel. You have him be a heel and then the dynamics are changed. Everybody's going to hate him for what he did to MJF and betraying him. And now MJF becomes a bigger baby face and going on the chase to get the title back. So what about the guy that made MJF embrace the fans and become our scumbag? What about the guy who won the Ring of Honor tag team titles with MJF at AEW all in and also main event at the show with him in London? What about Adam Cole? MJF already defeated Cole. Yes, he's a former NXT champion and many people feel that Cole has the character motivation to be the one to the throne based on this long time story that AEW has been telling with both men. And ever since Cole came to AEW, Tony Khan has gone out of his way to make him feel special just like MJF and maybe that's why they are paired together right now. But let's ask ourselves, does Cole really need this? He's already known as a name who was the face of NXT and reigns supreme in the black and gold brand. Sure, he deserves an AEW world title, but beating MJF will rob AEW of the opportunity to create a new fresh main event star. And I get what he's trying to say, what he's alluding to someone that's not from an established company or whatnot. Someone, hey, they're trying to a homegrown talent in AEW. Now let's talk about a few names who could benefit most by defeating MJF for the title. Orange Cassidy, the two-time international champion, OC is ready for a main event push. He's already proved that he can be a reliable champion with his long international championship reign. Some people, honestly, some people would definitely be like, hell nah, y'all already know who I'm talking about. Could have booked him in a world title feud after he lost that championship to Moxley at all out, but he was red hot coming out of that match. He's never had a full-blown rivalry with MJF and AEW, though they've interacted, and it is something that should happen and would be kind of exciting. He has a connection with the audience. He's really considered an AEW guy through and through and gets huge reactions wherever he goes. Yeah. De-throning MJF for the AEW world title will elevate him to a status of Megastar that some people think he already is. Another man who has never faced MJF This could be good, too. Rob Mack Eddie Kingston, who can also be booked as a threat to Max's world title reign. He's a threat to anyone he gets in the ring with. He is the reigning and defending Ring of Honor world champion and the New Japan strong open weight champion. He's known for his raw authentic. There's too many championships in AEW. Everybody has a fucking belt, so it doesn't seem as important. Passionate promos. I've worked with Eddie Kingston on camera for AAW and on the independent circuit, I can tell you there is no one who has as much conviction when they speak on camera as Eddie Kingston. He is what he says he is his genuine energy facing a maybe possibly more sneaky, manipulative and cheating MJF. Can you imagine the promo battle between them? This would be good. Fire. Yes. He is on the older side, but age is a number in wrestling right now and Eddie Kingston is proving it with his longevity fighting through injuries and still keeping two title belts. Maybe the underdog narrative with him getting some sympathy a compelling choice to chase the AEW world title and become even bigger. That would be something that fans could sink their teeth into and a win over MJF for the AEW world title could definitely prove a fresh and exciting direction for the main event scene. But another great choice to dethrone MJF is someone who has motivation to do it. His former bodyguard, yes, the man who writes symphonies with power bombs, Wardlow, despite having a win over Max, Wardlow has not been able to keep that momentum going and get to the upper level above the problems. He did win the TNT championship a few times, but that's about it when it comes to his success in AEW. The story of Wardlow breaking away from MJF was a really exciting one and some people thought it would really make him into an even bigger star coming out of Double or Nothing 2022. But slowly his stock just kind of diminished. He was one of those guys that sort of got Yeah, we didn't see him no more. They put them in nonsensical views. They didn't keep the momentum going lost in the shuffle even with the TNT title wins. However, if he comes after MJF now for that title, it could push him to another level and he has the motivation to do it. He recently returned with MJF's name written on his wristband, which indicates that AEW could be going in that direction. Possibly seems like it. But it's unclear if he would be the one to take Max away from the title. AEW has been praised for promoting and developing fresh young talent. Elevating Wardlow to the AEW World Championship would be a testament to the company's commitment, providing opportunities for emerging stars and bringing a new face at the top of the card and the world of professional wrestling title reigns serve as a platform to elevate not only the champion, but also the promotion that champion represents. MJF's reign has at times fallen a little bit short in creating new stars, but it hasn't fallen short in creating compelling matches and storylines. Tony Khan needs to build up fresh new reliable, believable challengers to Max right now. Or else AEW might have the similar situation as WWE has Roman Reigns. Now, MJF is not a tribal chief and he doesn't need to be and holding the AEW World title for a thousand days doesn't make sense for him or AEW. If none of the challengers are people you believe can take the title. Something to think about and also it would be interesting to see how this plays into that whole bidding war of 2024. Yeah. Imagine MJF walking out of AEW with the world title. That would be crazy. People would be freaking out in Jacksonville about that. Get into the comments below. Who do you think should take the AEW World title off of MJF or should he keep it and reign on? Watch more very interesting video, man. I'm going to go ahead and give this one give this one a like man. This was very interesting. Very, very interesting to be honest with you. I don't know. I don't know who they have right now where it makes sense for them to take the title off of MJF. He's still their biggest star in the company right now. Rightfully so. It's just the consistency that Tony Khan has been booking these potential individuals and they haven't been consistent. They were consistently putting these people like a Ricky Starks like a Wardlow, you know, like a Darby Allen in these positive like situations or situations that can grow them to the point where it's like you building them up as well. Alongside with MJF being the champion. So when the time comes to have them have a match now people can buy into a Darby Allen has a really great chance because he's been he's been killing it. You know, saying whatever fugues he's been having or whatever matches he's been he's been on a on a win streak. He's he's been coming out on top and fused. He's looking like someone that can get the job done. Like you need to do that. Same thing with Wardlow. You can't just bring him back after months and then expect people to really buy in to him beating MJF. Now, granny, you have to start somewhere, but they need to continue it. You have an MJF on your wrist. You need to continue building that story and building him up to that point where it's a viable option that Wardlow can get the job done. I think a lot of people would have been okay with that storyline, but they dropped the ball with Wardlow after he initially beat MJF. They dropped the ball and he didn't really do much with him. So they got to find a way to continuously keep building up the people that they're trying to build. They'll build up someone and then you won't see him on TV for a while. And it's kind of hard for the fans to buy into the people that you're trying to build up. If they don't see them, they're not in anything major or prominent. You feel me? So I don't know. I really don't know who they have where it makes sense that MJF could lose to. At least not right now. They have the talent and the people that could take the title from him. But in my opinion right now, I don't see it yet. So y'all, let me know down below. Who do y'all feel like should be the person to finally dethrone MJF at some point? Who do y'all have in mind that should be the one to get the job done? But I appreciate all of the support you guys showing on channel Road to 150K. And I'm still young speedy. You just rest in the world. Appreciate y'all kidding me. See y'all next one. Peace.