MJF Lists His Top Five Matches of All Time, Compares His Current Version as AEW World Champion to Previous One

Earlier today, AEW’s Maxwell Jacob Friedman engaged in a freewheeling conversation with Chris Van Vliet on INSIGHT.

During the conversation, The Salt of the Earth spilled beans on WWE’s interest in him, his rivalry with CM Punk, and his views on the latter’s change of heart after joining WWE.

As the conversation went on, Chris Van Vliet asked the two-time AEW World Champion to list his top five matches of all time. He listed the Iron Man Match against Bryan Danielson from AEW Revolution 2023, the Dog Collar Match against CM Punk from the same event in 2022, his battle with Hangman Page at last year’s Revolution, and a showdown with Darby Allin at Full Gear 2021 as potential options. Here’s what MJF said:

“Bryan Danielson, Iron Man match. CM Punk, dog collar match, I’m gonna throw MJF versus Hangman at Revolution. I believe that was last year. Darby versus me [at] Full Gear, we were the opening match. This is where it gets hard. I will throw in the Mistico match as well. We can do this all day. I can do a top 50 because I’ve had it. But I think those are the ones that, when people think about my career, that’ll come up. The match against Kenny Omega on Collision also.
“These things can be swapped and switched. The match against Samoa Joe at Grand Slam was insanity. My match with Adam Cole in front of 82,000 people, we pretty much broke the sound barrier that night. It was absurd. It was the loudest I’ve ever [heard]; my ears hurt. Both of my matches with Will Ospreay. But the difference between me and somebody you ask this question to, I get frustrated naming these matches because I didn’t win all of them. Sure, they were great, and they were entertaining, but I didn’t win all of them, and that p*sses me off. I won a good amount of them, I said, but not all of them.”

MJF Compares His Current Run as World Champion To His First One

MJF is currently in his second reign as AEW World Champion. He previously held the title for 406 days, from November 2022 to December 2023. During the conversation, the Long Island native compared his current version to the one who held the title for 400-plus days a few years ago. He admitted that he was “immature” at the time.

“I was a child. I was immature. I wasn’t ready. I was ready to talk the talk, and at moments, I walked the walk. But I slipped, and I fell, and I had a long cry over it, as opposed to picking myself up, dusting myself off, and going, ‘No, I’m still the best. Nobody’s better than me in the ring; nobody’s better than me blow for blow on the mic, and nobody’s better than me outside of the square—that’s me.’ That’s not just MJF; that’s Max Friedman talking. I’ve been doing this for over a decade now. I’ve been doing it since I was 18 years old. I got signed to my first contract at 19 with MLW. Then I got signed. I had an opportunity to either go to WWE or AEW when I was 22.

“I went to All Elite Wrestling, and during this entire time span, I’ve proven over and over again that I’m the most complete professional wrestler in the world. There were three months that thankfully now, when I look back on them, I could laugh. I could not laugh when Adam Cole broke his ankle. I could not laugh when my friend betrayed me. I could not laugh when my left hip and my left shoulder were essentially Jell-O pudding. I could not laugh when people went from talking about me as being the guy to talking about me as being the problem. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, and a lot of shining a mirror up to wrestling fans’ faces and going, ‘Oh sh*t, no, he is everything he said he was.’I’m not going to sit here and tell you that those three months didn’t su*k a bag of donkey di*ks. They did, but I feel what I’ve done now has more than made up for it. What I’ve done for the whole span of my career has more than made up for it. I’m noticing now people are talking about me in the same reverence that they did before those three months.”

Check out the conversation below:

MJF will defend his AEW World Title against Brody King at Grand Slam: Australia this weekend.