MJF—Heel or Face but Fucking Brilliant
MJF Cut The Promo of His Lifetime-again
Maxwell Jacob Friedman and William Regal (credit: AEW)
Wrestling is a subjective art and there’s few consensus among its hardcores. But you could certainly say, across all the tribalism, that today’s in-ring wrestling is increasingly better than yesteryears’, or at the very least, has much more athleticism.
The same with promos.
Back in the day, a good promo was making the audience suspend disbelief; not in, “I know all that shit’s fake but that’s real,” but rather, “Holy shit, I can’t believe he’s even audible after snorting his bodyweight in blow!”
I’m an old school fan bred from the 80s and I love watching Dusty and Flair perform their magic, but they’ve been surpassed. If 2022 has taught us anything, it’s that MJF really is the greatest promo of all time. Of all time. No hyperbole, no recency bias—we’re going to be watching his masterworks from 2022 live on for decades and we’ll talk about them like we talked about “Hard Times” and the 1992 Royal Rumble victory speech.
Last week’s Dynamite in Cincinnati was a goddamn TED Talk for weaving so many emotions, vantage points, and possible outcomes into one breathless piece of theatre. Note the usage of the word theatre. Because I firmly believe—I genuinely, wholeheartedly-as-fuck believe—this promo was as artistically satisfying as the best scenes in the best movies, shows, and plays.
It started off with MJF interrupting William Regal, and before entering the ring (or stage), MJF took off his Dynamite ring, and William Regal pocketed his brass knuckles, symbolically dropping their weapons to go mano a mano, while simultaneously setting up a callback later on.
Depending on your vantage point and life experience, you’re going to think of MJF as the babyface and victim in his story, or, you’re going to think of MJF as the heel and playing the victim. On our podcast, I compared MJF to Holden Caulfield. Like Caulfield, he’s prone to screaming and shouting, short-tempered, and having an identity crisis during a nervous breakdown. I find the audiences’ reaction to MJF a reflection of the ethos of the generation that consumes him, not unlike how different generations have a varying response to Catcher in the Rye over the years. He’s either a comically, cynic straight-shooter or a privileged, whiny little bitch, depending on when you were born.
When MJF began his soliloquy (when referring to MJF, I say that earnestly) he subtly started it with a babyface plea, telling the Cincinnati crowd to bear with him. Brilliant accident with the local university’s mascot notwithstanding, he’s making a point to not insult the crowd like he always does to the hometown crowd, without a single meth-related jab. MJF told the story of how he was selected to do extra work for WWE and eventually got an audition under William Regal’s watch. He impressed Regal enough for Regal to tell him he was going to get MJF a job only for Regal to blow MJF heartlessly only months later.
Some interesting tidbits to note: Notice that Regal crooked his first smile at MJF when Max shouted that professional wrestling is his life. Regal wanted to hear that. Max used the line, “ADD riddled Jew-boy,” something he only shares when his character is speaking about the most vulnerable sides of himself, or, depending on how you look at MJF, when he’s purposely trying to be a babyface or a heel, knowing how that line is going to land for some. Also, how despicable is the wrestling industry towards its young blood when they try to get jobs for the next generation but never bother to ask their age right from the get-go? What an incredible waste of everyone’s time, especially when they love to tout how valuable their time is.
Shit got real when MJF said the rejection email drove him to suicidal ideation. It’s incredible how real it feels and perfectly in-character this is. What would drive MJF to suicidal thoughts—something we’d all think eventually we’d hear about based on how dark his character is. Turns out it was the most MJF thing ever—A slight over email. Being dismissed digitally. For a character that is all, all-or-nothing schemas, it made perfect sense for it to be something as simple as that. MJF finished his portion of the promo to the loudest reaction that night. He got a standing fucking ovation for it.
This promo was all about MJF, but it needed William Regal here to play off of and to cement this as an all-time classic. When MJF told Regal his two-faced kiss-off made him want to kill himself, Regal snickered at him. Regal leaned in and looked MJF so dead in the eye that MJF had to turn away. Regal threw MJF’s appropriating the usage of calling himself a child by sharing how when Regal was a child, grown ass men beat the shit out of him regularly and he had to fight for his existence just to get to become a wrestler.
“Max, don’t take any shortcuts,” Regal began. “You want to be a real bad guy, you want to be the devil, then make a name for yourself by doing it right. Beat everybody that stands in front of you and I don’t care what liberties you take with competitors, just get to that place.”
Regal gave MJF his back, to let him be the devil, to challenge him to not be the victim that whines and cries, and MJF couldn’t do it, and Regal scolded him that he still has a lot to prove.
What will this become in the weeks ahead? Will this begin MJF’s babyface run that the crowd seemingly is begging for? Or will this make MJF the greatest heel in the industry if he can’t do what needs to be done on his own with no shortcuts to be the devil and the AEW champion. It’s brilliant storytelling by the most brilliant of actors.
(credit: AEW)
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