Returning to The Ariel Helwani Show today (May 19) to promote this weekend’s AEW Double or Nothing PPV in Queens, New York, Maxwell Jacob Friedman told the host to ask him the hard questions.
Now, MJF is pretty much always in character, and is up there with the Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch’s of the world in terms of weaving work and shoot throughout his mainstream interviews. But when Helwani pressed him to name someone who came to AEW from WWE and wasn’t a good fit, Max’s answer tracks with most
reporting on the past few years behind-the-scenes of AEW:
“I think it’s pretty obvious it’s Malakai Black.
“I don’t know the guy on a personal level. Do I think he’s a bad guy? No. Do I think he was a mark for wanting to have his ‘Mania moment’? Yeah, and there were a couple of guys like that, and they got weeded out. Then they went over there and some found out the grass isn’t greener. And some of them did — for them the grass was greener. But I’d say a majority that were like ‘I’m gonna use AEW to go back to WWE’, I think you’re gonna see a lot of those guys ask for a 50% pay cut from the office, or just get released.
“It’s unfortunate because if you show up to our company and work hard, there’s really no need to burn bridges. I’m not shitting on him, I’m just simply telling you what I was told by a majority of the locker room about this specific individual. So as a team captain, and a leader, and someone that has been part of this company since day one, I don’t want to deal with guys that don’t want to be team players. Fuck off, go elsewhere. Or, fucking prove me wrong. I would love to be proved wrong.”
It’s actually fairly diplomatic… while also just burying the recently re-unemployed Aleister Black.
There were multiple interesting moments in Friedman’s chat with Helwani, but another that really struck me was his answer on going to WWE one day has changed over the years. Early in his time on the national stage, using AEW as a stepping stone to jump to WWE was half of MJF’s schtick. He even hyped “The Bidding War of 2024” as when he could jump, but there was speculation he would before rumors circulated he quietly re-sign in late 2023.
Based on the last few years, those certainly appear to have been correct. Max discussed a “hypothetical” WWE offer he might have “hypothetically” turned down with Helwani. And while it all came with the usual “never say never” asterisk all wrestling-related things do, MJF also openly daydreamed about being a “never WWE” guy:
“Was it tough [turning down WWE]? No.
“You have to know your worth, and I know my worth. And my worth was built because of the legacy that I’m building in AEW. There is something very enchanting to me, no matter how much money did, or does, or will get thrown at me. And trust me it was a lot, hypothetically. It was a fucking lot, hypothetically. It doesn’t matter because I care about my legacy more than anything…
“The idea of going down as the greatest of all time is really important to me. And I also think that there’s something very special about being able to say that with having never worked ‘there.’ I think that that’s really cool.
“I think the idea of that happening in the wrestling world — and to me the Mount Rushmore of professional wrestlers-turned-actors are Dave Bautista, John Cena, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson — as you know, Mount Rushmore has how many heads? Four. My goal is to be that fourth head. And if I could pull that off on my name alone and the legacy that I’ve built on my own back, not from a machine, just the Maxwell machine — I think it would feel all the more sweeter.”
We’ll have more from this later, I believe. For now, these two quotes should give you plenty to talk about down in the comments.
