I assume I expected so much more from this advertised face-to-face tonight after “Hangman” Adam Page defeated Andrade El Idolo at Grand Slam: Australia, and I especially expected more from AEW World Champion MJF, but what we got tonight was a bit of confusing and really clunky.
I expected MJF to return out hot out of the gate, possibly addressing the recent controversy around Page and who he stays friends with, but he didn’t really have any witty lines that will make headlines at any point on this. And while, yes, that is obviously not the purpose of each promo, and MJF even said he wasn’t on the market to “cut a ‘rasslin’ promo” or sell tickets to Revolution, it began off a bit flat for me.
I assumed it got higher, for a bit of while, not less than, when Page picked things up when he said that he looks at MJF, he realizes he’s never met someone more like him. He made all of it make sense, explaining that MJF is desperate for love and acceptance, identical to him. Page said that he knew MJF could feel it, too, that their match at Revolution needed a stipulation. That was all well and good, but things fell off for me from there.
MJF, after all, wasn’t about it, so to get him to comply with a stipulation, “Hangman,” for lack of a greater term, Cody Rhodes’ed himself. He said if MJF gives him a stipulation, he’ll never challenge for the AEW Men’s World Championship again, so long as he lives. Not only when MJF is champion. Never again, a la Rhodes ahead of Full Gear in 2019. You’d need to assume that the powers that be in AEW knew just how terribly that worked out for Rhodes, to the purpose it might need even pushed him out of the corporate. While I actually don’t foresee that extreme for Page, it’s either not going to work, or we just got one big ol’ spoiler for Revolution with a Page victory.
Things got pretty clunky after that, with MJF saying he needed every week to think on a stipulation that Page said he could select. Nonetheless, Page then said it might be a Texas Death Match, so I’m assuming MJF has every week to comply with the a part of the deal, as well? I could also be making it out to be more confusing than it was meant to be, but I discovered that part just strange and not-so-well worded.
Overall, this wasn’t the very best thing on tonight’s show. MJF has more within the tank when it comes to promo battles for this feud, so hopefully, we get something so much more exciting and clearer next week.
Written by Daisy Ruth