AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman appeared in a pre-taped segment on tonight’s AEW Dynamite, with Renee Paquette interviewing the champion alongside Adam Cole. After MJF was told that damage to his neck would disallow him from traveling to this week’s Dynamite, the AEW World Champion addressed both of his potential opponents for next week’s AEW Grand Slam.
Roderick Strong and Samoa Joe will face off in the main event of tonight’s Dynamite, the culmination of a tournament to decide MJF’s challenger at Grand Slam. In reference to Strong, MJF had plenty to say. The champ called Strong a “simp,” and accused him of faking his neck injury. MJF also threatened to put Strong’s head up his rear end, while stating that it seemed Strong has already had his head there in recent months. From “wet blanket” to “bland,” MJF tore through Strong before moving on to Joe.
MJF’s tirade against the Ring of Honor World Television Champion started out relatively straightforward. The world champion told Joe he wasn’t afraid of him and promised to choke his opponent out before diving into his rendition of the classic “Steiner Math” promo given by Scott Steiner during a 2008 episode of TNA Impact!
“See, normally, if you go one-on-one with another wrestler, you got a fifty-fifty chance of winning, but I’m a genetic freak, and I’m not normal, so you got a 25 percent chance at best to beat me,” MJF began. “Then you add my boy Cole watching my back to the mix, your chances of winning drastically go down.”
The AEW World Champion continued on from there, reciting the entire promo almost word-for-word. MJF changed out a few lines to reference his current feud against Joe, but the decision to recreate a previous promo nearly verbatim is sure to be a controversial choice among wrestling fans.