Just over two months ago, I penned an article that asked if current All Elite Wrestling World champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman was a true heel or just using cheap heat? During a promo that particular week, MJF name dropped Nick Khan, the WWE executive, as well as several other WWE champions before he mocked the death of the legendary Bruno Sammartino. As I said at the time, the references to WWE and "the bidding war of 2024" only made AEW look minor league in comparison. You won't hear anyone on WWE programming name drop MJF unless he inks a deal there because quite frankly, the vast majority of the WWE audience probably isn't aware of who MJF is. On the flip side, Friedman's references to WWE came off as an almost desperate "hey, look at me being so edgy."
That's not meant as a total knock, but rather to point out that Friedman is better than that.
Make no mistake about it, MJF is one of the most talented performers on the All Elite roster, and most of the time, avoids the silly habits that draw criticism from some of the rest of the show. You don't see MJF in the segment with Rick Ross that went so far off the rails that Vince Russo could've booked it. You don't see MJF no-selling during a match to the point where it makes everything look phony. Friedman is a natural of the sport, both in the ring and on the mic. He has the potential to be a major star, either in All Elite or outside of it. He checks all the boxes as far as being a well-rounded performer that you can build an organization around. Plus, at a time when everyone wants to post gifs on social media or plug their Pro Wrestling Tees store, he embraces the role of a heel.
That's why it's so disappointing that more often than not in the past year, MJF seems to resort to cheap heat in an attempt to "shock" the audience rather than allowing his natural demeanor and mannerisms generate the type of heat that can draw money.
Following a very solid match against Konosuke Takeshita on Dynamite last week, Friedman did a locker room promo, where he made sexual gestures to imply what happened while he was in a car before he supposedly wrecked then switched seats with his date to make it appear that she was responsible for the car crash.
The easiest way to dice this segment would be to point out that it's too unrealistic to happen, which is why it drew comparisons to the horrendous Katie Vick angle from two decades ago. When something is too ridiculous, it jumps the shark so there's no heat from it. If you want to parse details then you can see just how far off the mark the promo was for anything productive as far as building to a pay-per-view main event. Since Friedman became known for his mic skills at such a young age during his time in MLW, he garnered comparisons to Roddy Piper, mostly because they were both very young when they turned heads in the industry, not necessarily because it was an apples to apples comparison. The term "Piper in Portland," a nod to Roddy's time working for legendary promoter Don Owen, was thrown around, but I'd guess that the vast majority of the people that made that statement had simply heard about Piper's time in the Pacific Northwest, not actually watched the footage. If they had, they would've realized that it's not an accurate or even fair comparison to make toward MJF. However, since Friedman himself uttered the phrase on television before, if you make that comparison, especially based on last week's promo, it becomes clear that he isn't in Piper's league. As mentioned, Friedman made a sexual gesture in the promo so you have to ask yourself, would Roddy Piper have to do something that lewd to get a reaction from a promo? At most, Piper occasionally used an innuendo in a promo that would've seemed like a bland statement to a younger audience, similar to the way some 90s cartoons carefully crafted a punchline that only adults would get during the show. Piper also mentioned in a shoot interview in the early-2000s that he didn't use profanity in promos because it was "a lack of talent" so again, would Piper have used any of the language that MJF has used in more recent promos?
Roddy Piper didn't have to use the "shock jock" antics because quite frankly, he was better than that, and MJF should be too.
Furthermore, and this should go without saying so if it was actually cleared through management, the AEW office should reevaluate their approach to how segments make it on television. Is it really the time to have a promo about a car wreck just a few weeks after Jay Briscoe passed away in a car accident? Granted, I'm sure it wasn't intentionally done to attempt to use Briscoe's passing to get heat for a wrestling angle, but it's so low brow that it's the type of stuff that makes you want to change the channel.
Finally, and this is probably the biggest takeaway from the current presentation of Friedman, the attempts at cheap heat to "shock" the audience aren't based on the substance of an angle so there's very limited heat from it. You can only attempt to shock the audience so many times before it falls flat or seems desperate to get a reaction. I get that Friedman is supposed to be a "real heel" but as I said in the prior article, isn't that supposed to be the goal for every villain in the industry? Did anyone think that Ric Flair was "playing a bad guy on television" in his heyday? With the exposure of the industry in the modern era, it's not that MJF is ahead of the curve, but rather that most of the other heels are behind it. The heels that can intrinsically get heat with their look and presentation are those that have longevity because those skills aren't based on just a specific promo or a match. Tully Blanchard looked like a smug jerk regardless of how many matches he won or lost so he maintained the heat he had from the audience.
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