Reported Backstage Reason For AEW Star MJF's Current Heel Status

AEW's WrestleDream saw two of its major players return from hiatus in MJF and Adam Cole, and now AEW appears poised to rekindle their storyline as if no time had passed. When the feud was hot over a year ago, Cole was the heel and MJF the babyface, but roles have seemingly flipped, if the reaction from the Tacoma crowd was any indication.

On "Wrestling Observer Radio," Dave Meltzer speculated on the reasoning for the reversal, hinting that the explanation might be as simple as MJF's preference in playing the heel.

"I'm sure this was Max's idea," Meltzer said. "Max wants to be a heel. He doesn't want to be a babyface now. People were happy to see Adam Cole back. But it was weird. From a babyface-heel storyline consistency thing, it's like they totally just reversed everything that they had, the whole angle."

MJF  seemed to acknowledge the abrupt about-face on X (formerly known as Twitter) by saying "Adam Cole. You've made a big mistake." He followed up his own Tweet with "ALSO WHY DID YOU CHEER HIM?!? HES LITERAL SCUM!"

Adam Cole.

You've made a big mistake.

— Maxwell Jacob Friedman™️ (@The_MJF) October 13, 2024

AEW fans had not seen MJF since All Out, where "The Salt of the Earth" was written off TV with a neck injury to film scenes for Adam Sandler's upcoming movie "Happy Gilmore 2." It was Cole's return, however, that generated the most buzz, receiving one of the loudest reactions at WrestleDream. 

Cole has not wrestled in over a year after suffering a severe ankle injury at "AEW Grand Slam" 2023, where a seemingly unremarkable leap from the ramp to the floor required several surgeries and hardware to correct. However, his dead sprint to the ring at WrestleDream indicated he may be close to returning to action.