10 Wrestlers Who Drew REAL Heat In The Post-Kayfabe Age
1. MJF
MJF performs a spot designed to put over his character and that character's disdain for the modern wrestling audience. He flies between the ropes, motions to execute some exciting move or other, and at the very last second, he draws back and tells the crowd to f*ck off with that unbearable smug grin plastered over his face.
This is also how close MJF gets to the mythical "line".
He never crosses it. This is crucial. There's a quite incredible precision to MJF's heel work because it never resonates as ugly or cheap. The heat MJF generates is as rich as his old money family is.
At AEW Double Or Nothing, he riffed on the attempted assault of Bret Hart at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony knowing that, while it remained vivid in the memory, just enough time had passed to make the gag feel less desperate.
At Fyter Fest, he was intelligent enough to pick his spot with the specific gamer-heavy audience, whom he labelled virgins. He knew who their biggest heel was - the so-called 'Chad' - and embodied him to their visible embarrassment.
He called Tony Schiavone a "fat prick" on Dynamite, and that, in particular, was inspired. He punched down to a beloved wrestling folk hero, but that folk hero is a well-paid man. It wasn't too cruel.
It was just cruel enough.