Ranking Every Major Current Wrestling Storyline From Worst To Best
2. MJF Takes The Inner Circle
MJF and Chris Jericho have shadowed one another almost imperceptibly since November 2019: a full year before the story became explicit in AEW canon. Some of this detail was subliminal, effectively, and all of it was planted to put over the idea that MJF is the next great North American heel.
In a thrilling, hilarious and impossible-to-predict development, he can no longer allow himself to wait that long.
After his failure to capture the AEW World Title at All Out, MJF resolved to make a change that would bring him closer to contention: like the inaugural champ, in yet more shadowing, he needed a "wolfpack" to get it. He asked to join the Inner Circle. They were split, but after impressing Jericho by appealing to his ego - after all, MJF wants to be the next Chris Jericho, and what does that say about Chris Jericho? - he was given the opportunity to join, if he could defeat his mentor at Full Gear. He did, in an outcome that was obvious but more important than a necessary story beat: it favoured MJF in the resulting power struggle.
Meticulously storyboarded - so well that any plot holes, like the total lack of kayfabe purpose to the Santana and Ortiz tag team, are invariably explained - it is impossible to guess week-to-week. It is multifariously purposeful, in that it spawns matches and is the perfect babyface vehicle for Sammy Guevara. It's suspenseful, in that he might even be scheming with MJF in secret. It's also lovingly crafted and detailed, in that you have to watch it twice or pore over Twitter to catch every conflicted facial expression.
It is uneven at times - Chris Jericho braining a clown in the temple was far funnier than the trite, invisible camera-happy Hangover parody - but this is ambitious and highly entertaining episodic TV that is gleefully concealing the endgame from you like the wink etched across young Maxwell's face.