On July 29, 2023, Adam Cole and MJF were unsuccessful in their bid to become the new All Elite Wrestling World Tag Team Champions losing to FTR in the main event of AEW Collision. Yet in their failure they successfully made us believe in their friendship.
None of this has felt planned, even if it was. Maxwell Jacob Friedman is the AEW World Heavyweight champion and should be focused on his potential singles contenders. Whoever that is. Adam Cole tried to get a shot against him but ended up going to a draw. This led to them both being picked for a random Blind Eliminator tag tournament.
It felt like the typical CAN THEY CO-EXIST? story that pro wrestling has beaten into the ground. It’s very nonsensical from a sports perspective, where rivals usually have a good time playing on a team together whether it’s the All-Star game or a national team to play for an Olympic championship. But in pro wrestling? Everything is about your history and emotions. So we’re always convinced that bitter rivals having to work together will fail, and fail quickly. It’s usually a way for the heel to catch the babyface off guard.
It’s also a story that often undermines the tag team division to tell a singles storyline. Two solo wrestlers beating established tag teams because singles is inherently superior to tag wrestling. But they don’t stick around due because the point isn’t to be a tag team. It is to be a singles feud.
AEW in its four year history has had multiple opportunities to tell different stories to what we’ve been fed for the past two decades in American pro wrestling. This one they took the opportunity and ran with it. Not only did Adam Cole and MJF work as a tag team, they grew together as friends. They took the Blind Eliminator serious and developed as a team. MJF became less of an asshole and pure heel and warmed up to the idea of being committed to this.
MJF has tried being babyface before. He plays babyface every time he wrestles in Long Island. He started in AEW as being one of Cody Rhodes friends despite being a bad guy to everyone. It was the least surprising betrayal to ever happen and ended up making Cody look stupid for ever trusting a guy who everyone knew would turn on him. MJF was also very much cheered and beloved when he returned at AEW All Out in front of CM Punk who had just won the AEW World Title in Chicago, something that seemed unrealistic months prior. AEW teased him being a babyface for a little bit in his feud with Jon Moxley soon after, but he went back to being, “The Devil.”
This time was feeling different. It felt genuine, and even if it was all supposed to eventually serve a way for MJF to attack Adam Cole or Adam Cole to attack MJF, the crowd didn’t want the singles feud. They wanted to believe in this. So much that they got a double clothesline, one of the most basic tag team double team maneuvers over with the audience. The crowd now just chants it. It’s magical. No matter what the plan was, it just felt like this was something that needed to continue. And it does need to continue.
We can go back and forth as to whether or not Adam Cole and MJF should have beat FTR for the AEW Tag Championship, and there’s good arguments for both. FTR winning helps solidify the tag division as being for tag wrestlers and not just a place for singles wrestlers to go when they want a new story. It was also FTR that defeated Hangman Page and Kenny Omega, two singles wrestlers who would go on to feud with each other for a year after their loss. Winning the championship though was what all the fans wanted, and it helped that episode of Collision to be a ratings winner with over 400,000 in the 18-49 watching the main event. Great numbers for a Saturday night show.
While the Tag Team Championship can be a future goal for Better Than You Bay Bay, it isn’t the real goal right now. The real goal is keeping them together, and ending the show with MJF blaming himself for the loss (he sacrificed himself so Cole wouldn’t take the Shatter Machine before being rolled up), teasing hitting Adam Cole with the AEW World Heavyweight championship, but tossing it aside to give Adam Cole a hug. That was the goal. Keeping them together.
There is a lot that still needs to be done for this story. MJF promised Adam Cole a shot at the championship. I’ve suggested doing it at AEW All In in Wembley, the biggest event there since the World Wrestling Federation held SummerSlam in 1992. That show ended with the British Bulldog and Bret “The Hitman” Hart embracing after a 25 minute championship match. It didn’t end in hate. It ended in unity. I think that’s how you handle that match.
Roderick Strong, one of Adam Cole’s closest friends, has been in a neckbrace and rejecting the friendship between the two. My hope is that Cole’s other best friend (a friend he also always fights) in Kyle O’Reilly soon returns and becomes MJF and Cole’s new rivals.
There’s also the looming background of CM Punk, who on AEW Collision revealed he had the AEW World Heavyweight Championship that was stripped of him for his actions at All Out 2022 after the show ended. He proclaimed himself the Real World Champion and spray painted an X on the face of the belt (Punk is either blissfully unaware that everyone hates the letter X after Elon Musk changed the name of Twitter to it or he’s well aware and this is all part of the plan) and will be defending his championship next week. MJF has a microphone tonight on AEW Dynamite and will likely have to address it, likely to build to a match at AEW All Out in Chicago where the two can finally have their showdown for the championship.
It’s incredible what a year can do. Back in 2022, that was the obvious match between the two men. It felt like the most important match of MJF’s career to wrestle CM Punk and beat him to become AEW World Heavyweight champion. But now? With this Adam Cole story? It’s almost a distraction, a complication that needs to be addressed so he can go back to what’s important. MJF is now the biggest babyface in All Elite Wrestling, is World Champion, and has the hottest storyline as Adam Cole’s best friend. CM Punk is in the past for him, which is why I wouldn’t be surprised if CM Punk beats MJF to become undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, and does it being the bad guy. My how tables have turned.
Everyone has their ideas as to when this story should end. When will MJF finally turn? Will Adam Cole do it first? What causes their breakup? I don’t think they should break up. I think you run with this until it has no more gas. The tank is full right now so get driving. Keep them together beyond All In. Keep them together beyond All Out. Have them work towards another AEW World Tag Team Championship shot and have them win this time. There’s a team I mentioned earlier that were also two solo wrestlers who entered the tag division to win it all. That was Kenny Omega and Adam Page. That story ended up the biggest story for AEW throughout 2020 and 2021, and helped make Hangman Adam Page a viable World Heavyweight champion.
AEW should think the same on MJF and Adam Cole. Forget heat. Forget typical storytelling in pro wrestling. The fans love this. Stay together for them. Stay together for the kids.