10 Amazing Wrestling Callbacks You Totally Missed

10. Samoa Joe Barges Past MJF

Back when he was in NXT Champion, when making his entrance at TakeOver: Brooklyn II, Samoa Joe cruelly pushed a member of his security detail against a wall, all while wearing a smug expression on his face.

That person was MJF, who at the time was an aspiring unknown doing extra work to get his face out there.

Now, because he's a genius, MJF pays attention to everything. The man exists in character at all times in order to maintain the illusion that he is a "real" person in whom you can actually invest. Even before the events of AEW All Out 2023, MJF curated this tiny morsel of WWE storytelling. Upon Samoa Joe's first release from WWE, on April 15, 2021, the usual thing happened: fans petitioned for AEW to sign him. MJF, never letting even a small, theoretical narrative opportunity slip through his fingers, tweeted "Stop posting the gif".

It has at last been revisited in AEW canon when, at All Out, Joe opted to make his ring entrance immediately following Better Than You Bay-Bay's successful defence of the ROH World Tag Team titles. Joe, with a callback, brushed MJF aside before later applying a standing guillotine choke.

Building interest in their match, MJF has created the impression that he never got over the slight - reflecting his Rejection Sensitivity Disorder character arc in the process.

Just sublime depths of character work.