With all due love to the classic movie “Fight Club,” the first rule of MJF appears to be you do not talk about MJF. Or more precisely, to MJF.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select, answering a question he must get numerous times per day, every day, posted his latest MJF update, and it can best be summed up by its first sentence: “MJF has effectively vanished from the wrestling scene.”
According to Sapp, even people who are “close to him” haven’t spoken to or heard from the AEW wrestler since he cut his incendiary promo following Double or Nothing. That was on the June 1 episode of Dynamite, meaning MJF has now been persona non grata for more than two months.
Among the people not talking about MJF is one big one: AEW CEO, GM and Head of Creative Tony Khan. Sapp says his sources haven’t “overheard Tony Khan speak about MJF whatsoever since the June 1 promo.” He’s been remarkably consistent in that regard; Wrestling Junkie was on hand for the post-Forbidden Door press conference in late June in Chicago, where Khan politely declined to discuss MJF when asked by a member of the media.
Throughout MJF’s absence, the debate about whether it’s legit or an elaborate work has raged on. The consensus now is that he had very real grievances with his pay and standing within AEW that came to a head, which the promotion then chose to turn into storyline fodder to make the best of a potentially bad, and certainly awkward, situation.
A common belief among wrestling fans now is that if CM Punk hadn’t gotten hurt shortly after winning the AEW World Championship, MJF would have been in the mix right away, feuding with Punk. If that indeed turns out to be the case, MJF’s radio silence (he also hasn’t tweeted to his 325,000+ followers since May 27) could just be part of the show, because his commitment to his gimmick is second to none.
But the big takeaway from all of this is that this situation isn’t normal. Sapp ends his report by saying “I’ve never heard of someone going this unreachable in regards to wrestling for this period of time.”
With each passing week where no one mentions MJF, that becomes more and more true.