8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (24 May - Review)

5. MJF Is Still Him

MJF's stock has taken a kicking since this Pillars feud began. The excuses don't work when you get strapped up. If he is on trial as World Champion, on last night's evidence, he isn't guilty. He's over.

He played the audience like a conductor. It wasn't a performative panto reaction either: when he talked passionately about the Pillars and their achievements in a bid to put them over, before the inevitable bait-and-switch, the live crowd bought him as a babyface. Actual resentment crept into the audio mix. An interrupting Darby Allin was less over, and in another just bizarre, thoughtless angle, MJF was attacked by all three of his upcoming opponents. And, while he did kick Darby Allin in the balls, three babyfaces advancing towards him was such a dumb idea. They looked like a*sehole bullies. How are they possibly meant to get over as crowd favourites?

The idea is to make it seem like the walls are closing in on MJF, but it isn't working. At all. This story beat isn't helped by the idea that, if Tony Khan were half-contemplating a title change in April, he definitely isn't doing it in May.

MJF was on great form, at least. Too good, if anything; his twisted line about sending Jungle Boy into an echo chamber so that he could bore himself to death listening to his own voice was almost too sharp and humiliating a one-liner.