Wrestlers’ Court: MJF a worthy winner of The Golden Schwartz

I write this column as the world (or my part of it) begins slowing down for the holidays. The kids are about to go on Christmas vacation and my attempts to set up conference calls and meetings are most often met with ‘Out of Office’ notices. Even WWE has gotten into the act, taking talent off the road for the week before Christmas.

With the actual wrestling world on pause, I’d like to introduce the first-ever Golden Schwartz Award, my pick for achievement in the field of excellence.

The rules are simple. There are none. This is my completely biased, subjective take on the wrestler who made the biggest impression on me as a fan. Or lawyer. Or policy wonk. Or advocate. Or dedicated follower of fashion. You get the idea.

I acknowledge that this pretend award reflects my pro wrestling viewing habits. Over the past year I’ve watched a lot of WWE and enjoyed much of AEW (and ROH, even though like Eric Bischoff I think it’s time to wind that down) despite mounting criticisms. I’m a semi-regular Impact/TNA viewer and catch the NWA and indy feds as I can online, but I don’t pretend to the same level of expertise. I’ll also watch NJPW and CMLL and AAA but find that the language barrier (even with translation) means I’m probably missing aspects of those shows that would better inform my fandom. I’m sure there’s a lot out there that is not caught here. If you’re aware of any must-watch wrestling that’s not on my radar please respond in the comments. My family will totally support me as I spend even more time on pro wrestling. (Insert eye roll here…)

Next, a caveat. If you want a detailed discussion about work-rate or star rankings (also valid ways to express one’s love of wrestling), there are plenty of venues for that. I think that modern pro wrestling is about more than the number of great matches that a wrestler may have. With all due respect to industry insiders who argue that in-ring matters most and that kayfabe should still govern wrestlers’ conduct in or out of the arena, I may agree with you but that ship has long since sailed.

Modern wrestling makes clear that we’re watching art in a sporting context and things like character, promos and storylines are every bit as important as the physical payoffs that take place during matches. Bret Hart has outright called pro wrestling an art form. Vince McMahon, responding to complaints about the duration of Hulk Hogan’s house show title defenses, argued that Hogan’s performance began the moment he emerged from the locker room and that if one included the posing and ripping of T-shirts his matches were as long as any workhorse champ’s. If you don’t like WWE I defy you to tell me that the Freebirds vs. the Von Erichs, Buzz Sawyer vs. Tommy Rich, or Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk weren’t every bit as storyline driven as the latest Bloodline feud or AEW main-eventing Christian Cage vs. Adam Copeland for the thousandth time (which is, to be fair a surprisingly good storyline given the many variations we’ve seen elsewhere).

So, without further ado and with much pyro and ballyhoo, here is my take for the first ever Golden Schwartz Award:

Maxwell Jacob Friedman, also known as MJF.

Cue trumpets.

From a performance standpoint MJF’s year speaks for itself.

The seeds for his record-setting AEW World Championship reign were planted towards the end of 2022.

After an absence arising from a blistering worked-shoot promo against AEW owner Tony Khan, MJF returned to active duty at the All Out pay per view on September 4. Wearing the now-familiar devil mask he won a shot at the AEW World’s championship via the Casino Ladder match, which he entered as the ‘Joker’ competitor. Like any good heel, he received an assist-in this case from Stokely Hathaway as part of a tragically short-lived pairing.

MJF would formally reveal himself to then-champ CM Punk by the end of the night. Within two weeks he would introduce his ‘support system’, the Firm. Managed by Hathwaway the Firm was an unconventional collection of heels who would work together to protect MJF’s interests but were otherwise free to pursue their own goals. Or something like that.

Like a lot of late-2022 AEW booking it never quite gelled and was quickly lost in the confusion and drama surrounding Punk’s injuries and HR issues. Within a few weeks the whole thing fell apart. MJF fired Hathaway for interfering in new champion Jon Moxley’s matches (the usually cowardly MJF now wanted Mox at 100% for their eventual title match) and Hathaway directed the Firm to attack their supposed benefactor. Either way, no big thing as evidenced by the audience’s non-reaction when Chris Jericho mentioned the group on a recent edition of Dynamite.

On November 19 at the Full Gear pay per view MJF defeated Moxley in a totally fair fight. Mox’s then-manager William Regal turned on his Blackpool Combat Club charge and handed MJF a pair of brass knuckles. By the next edition of Dynamite the new champion would unveil his own Burberry-patterned title belt and turn on Regal, sending him back to the welcoming arms of Triple H and WWE’s NXT brand.

A funny thing happened on the way to the title. MJF, who was still a vicious heel in-ring, had begun humanizing himself before the AEW faithful. He had grounded his earlier pursuit of Punk in his experiences as a jilted fan. At first I didn’t know quite what to make of this surprisingly sympathetic origin story. While I knew it would end in a typical heel beatdown it felt like the kind of exposition that one might see in a better-planned broader story arc — the kind that turns a despicable villain into a lovable hero — or at least antihero. I’m all about sympathetic, attractive villains. In any good story evil needs to be seductive, otherwise why would so many people follow along? I think that the key to an effective heel in wrestling and other media and life in general is that the bad guy has to believe he’s right no matter what. People don’t generally run cackling into the streets over their evildoing unless they’re running for President post-indictment.

MJF still wrestled as a heel and cut demeaning promos against his opponents, but he started drawing back the curtain and explaining why he was such a rotten human being.

For me the turning point was a promo where he described his early experiences with racism and antisemitism. I felt uncomfortable watching it. He referenced an incident where members of the high school football team threw change at him. MJF even repeated a slur that bullies had used against him live on the microphone. I was shocked. MJF was a full-blown heel. To me, using words like those and acknowledging the pain they caused him created a huge risk that they would taken as an invitation by his audience. I can’t see how Tony Khan as producer allowed it. There are already examples where an audience has taken over a show by chanting or yelling inappropriately. Imagine crowds hijacking AEW broadcasts to yell full-on racist epithets at wrestlers. Truthfully I was a bit worried for Maxwell Friedman, the person who plays MJF. To me this promo invited the wrong kind of heat even if it was extraordinary in its delivery.

Thankfully actual threats to MJF haven’t materialized and AEW audiences haven’t degenerated into hate speech, although there have been occasional signs carried by people who should otherwise tend to their neckbeards in private.

But I would argue, however improbably, a promo that was based on MJF establishing his being ‘different’ led to him turning into a full-fledged good guy.

I’ve never seen that. The best example I could come up with actually worked the other way around and supports the idea that pro wrestling audiences are less than tolerant. For years Dustin Runnels has portrayed the character Goldust as presumptively gay although this was never spoken out loud. Goldust was also a heel until during an interview with Jerry Lawler, the King asked if Goldust was “queer.” Goldust answered “No” and the crowd cheered, turning him into a face. I was disappointed. I would have rather seen that character ‘come out’ and be accepted for who he was (even as I know that Runnels has stated that neither he nor the character he played is/was actually gay). The whole thing struck me as a failure of representation.

As you might guess from the last name I’m Jewish too and I’ve had my own experiences. I even spent a few years in an advocacy role for my community. I’ve been sensitized to the portrayal of Jewish people and other minority groups, even by people who mean well. And pro wrestling is better known for broad caricatures than sensitive character studies. I’ve written before about the often-shameful portrayals of various immigrant, LGBTQ2S+ and racialized communities. At best these treatments age badly compared to social mores. At worst they’re deeply offensive in their own time.

The Jewish community hasn’t been immune from this.

Some performers like Randy Savage, the Grand Wizard/Abdullah Faroukh or Boris Malenko avoided the issue by not addressing their backgrounds at all as part of kayfabe (Malenko even portrayed a ‘Nazi’ early in his career before turning Russian). Plenty of Jewish female stars including Victoria and Kelly Kelly have done the same. Scott ‘Raven’ Levy made occasional oblique references to a privileged background in his WCW days but based his character on different aspects of his personality. His earlier incarnations like ‘Scotty Flamingo’ in WCW or ‘Johnny Polo’ in the WWF were similarly neutral, though in hindsight they played into stereotypes on some level. If you watch these performances I think you see a lot of early MJF in the making.

Other people like Montreal-Detroit manager Eddie ‘The Brain’ Creatchman leaned into hateful stereotypes to portray characters that played on the locals’ prejudices. Non-Jews got into the act too. In the early 1990s Mike Rotunda transformed from a perennial collegiate athlete as part of WCW’s Varsity Club into wrestling accountant ‘Irwin R. Schyster’. IRS’ background was never addressed explicitly-his promos focused on promoting tax compliance-but he was an antisemitic dog whistle before we had that term. ‘Shyster’ is a Yiddish word meaning someone who is disreputable or a cheat. The ‘Sch’ version used by the WWF is familiar. The first name ‘Irwin’ was also at one time a common Jewish given name (although the name itself is Scottish in origin). Add the fact that he was an evil accountant, which plays off a further set of offensive tropes and you get the idea. Mike Rotunda was a great wrestler. Irwin R. Schyster was a walking stereotype.

Still others like Barry Horowitz made their ethnicity the punchline of their acts. Through most of his WWF tenure as enhancement talent, Horowitz played a generic heel best known for solid matches and his ‘pat on the back’ taunt. As part of a minor push he turned babyface and suddenly started wearing a Star of David on his trunks, entering the ring to ‘Hava Nagila’ and dressing like a nerd complete with an accountant’s pocket protector. Jewish ‘jokes’ featured prominently on commentary, such as Curt Hennig’s claim during one of Horowitz’ matches that instead of a Thanksgiving turkey dinner he would enjoy a bowl of Matzo Ball soup. Almost 35 years later I still remember the comment. I thought it was distasteful then and still do today.

I’ll pause to note that for the most part, the portrayal of Jewish people in pro wrestling is better at this moment in history. World events have shown just how quickly public sentiment can turn, but openly Jewish non-stereotypical characters like Bill Goldberg, Drew Gulak, Noam Dar and Alexa Bliss have helped. Colt Cabana’s turn as WWE’s Scotty Goldman aside, he has generally acknowledged his background and used it to inform his character rather than letting it turn him into a joke.

Paul Heyman walks a very thin line with his advocacy. He plays up the fact that his father was a lawyer and I recognize the pattern when he builds his arguments in his promos. During a feud between Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg Heyman addressed the fact that he and Goldberg were both Jewish directly before making his allegiance to his client clear. In doing so Heyman took on another racist assumption — the idea that Jewish people have divided loyalties by virtue of their ethnicity. Not cool in real life or wrestling.

As part of that promo Heyman recited the Kaddish — a prayer of mourning over Goldberg’s imminent demise:

VIDEO: Paul Heyman says Kaddish for Goldberg to preview his imminent death at the hands of Brock Lesnar https://t.co/slpC5rXoZV pic.twitter.com/JQDPQ2cB3r

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) March 28, 2017

I thought it was a brilliant bit of theatre and a good example of how pro wrestling’s morality play could occasionally be flipped. Some friends disagreed-Heyman plays his role before an audience that often doesn’t appreciate nuance and rushes to see their biases confirmed. For some, negative portrayals no matter how finely crafted cause harm to real communities and performers should know better.

But I digress.

MJF was an unabashed heel who used his background to draw heat. He wore a Hanukkah themed suit for a promo. He leaned into some offensive stereotypes about wealth and privilege. He played a spoiled brat who would cheat and throw tantrums and bully his opponents until running from the fight he started to hide behind muscle like Wardlow or the Pinnacle or (briefly) the Firm. He included callouts to his ethnicity in his ring attire and his tattoos. He held a mock Bar Mitzvah ceremony in the middle of the ring.

And yet the face turn continued. On December 14 a vestigial heel MJF defended his AEW World Championship against Ricky Starks and retained ownership of the Dynamite Diamond Ring. MJF’s title defense schedule would increase in quantity and quality throughout 2023. In March he beat Bryan Danielson in the overtime of a 60-minute Iron Man match. In May, he retained his title in a four corners match against Sammy Guevara, “real glass, no class” Jack Perry and Darby Allin. In June MJF would draw against Adam Cole (Bay Bay!) and begin turning good due to the power of friendship. MJF would head into the summer with successful defenses against Japanese legend Hiroshi Tanahashi and Canadian work-in-progress Ethan Page.

I’d give MJF the Golden Schwartz just for his work with Adam Cole. After their draw in the spring, the two men were partnered in a tournament for a shot at the AEW World Tag Team championship. Throughout July they combined tournament victories with skits that showed their developing friendship. The skits were plainly ridiculous but actually funny (a rarity for pro wrestling’s alleged attempts at humor). MJF and Cole bonded over the course of the tournament as wrestlers do: they mashed up their entrance themes and got sweet matching jackets and adopted the tag team name “Better Than You Bay Bay”.

The duo beat Jericho Appreciation Society members Guevara and Daniel Garcia to win the title shot only to lose that match to then-champions FTR. This loss marked MJF’s full transformation into a babyface. In an entirely uncharacteristic display of sportsmanship he not only offered Cole a rematch for the AEW championship at All In, but would team with Cole on the pre-show to take the ROH tag team championship from Aussie Open. MJF would also debut his version of the ’Kangaroo Kick’ first made famous by old school Jewish pro wrestler Abe Jacobs.

Leaving aside my feelings on double-champions and the burial of the ROH tag belts (exacerbated by MJF defending them solo while Cole has been injured), the MJF-Cole dynamic has made for very entertaining television. What should feel like a distraction from the AEW World Championship has worked and developed MJF’s character further.

However many title defenses MJF has had, his 2023 is more notable for feuding with virtually the entire roster. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. MJF’s run has disrupted traditional notions of wrestling good and evil and reinvented the traditional championship chase. He is cheered despite antagonizing every wrestler who crosses his path including the Acclaimed, Kenny Omega, Juice Robinson and Jay White of Bullet Club Gold, Samoa Joe (who is now protecting MJF in order to preserve a future title shot against him) and Adam Page.

The feud with Robinson could have gone very, very wrong. In a callback to MJF’s earlier promo wherein he described antisemitic bullies tossing coins at him, Robinson brandished a roll of quarters with Friedman’s name on it. I recoiled at the sight along with many Jewish wrestling fans. The promo took place after terrorist attacks in Israel hurt Jewish people around the world. At best it was ill timed and the roll of quarters was intended as a foreign object used in all kinds of matches (Curt Hennig won the AWA title from Nick Bockwinkel when Larry Zbyszko passed him a roll, an oblivious referee counted Bockwinkel out despite the ring being littered with loose change). At worst it was a deliberate attempt to bring real world hateful tropes to pro wrestling and regardless of whether Robinson understood that it would portray his character as a racist, it was a bad look. MJF briefly defended the angle as part of his lived experience and has gone on to speak publicly about the importance of positive Jewish identity and standing up for oneself and one’s community. Thankfully, that part of the angle was shelved almost immediately and MJF’s defense against Robinson was one-and-done, using Juice as a heater to build interest in MJF’s November victory over Jay White. Meanwhile MJF crossed the one-year mark as AEW champion after beating Kenny Omega on October 28 and Daniel Garcia a week later.

Throughout the latter part of MJF’s championship run he has brought fans into his ‘me against the world’ viewpoint. No sooner does Samoa Joe step in to prevent a beatdown than MJF gets in ‘Hangman’ Adam Page’s face. MJF feels unique as a good guy who just can’t avoid being bad. He has had great matches against a variety of opponents-many of whom (Danielson, Joe, White, Omega) are among the best in the world and future Hall of Famers. He has worked outstanding, violent programs against the likes of Punk and Moxley and Jericho and held his own on the mic with everyone. As I write this MJF is nursing an injury but is scheduled to defend the AEW championship against Joe at the World’s End pay per view on December 30. Despite often acting like an absolute tool he has consistently been shown to win his opponents’ grudging respect. His portrayal has at once been a sea change in audience perception and consistent within his character. His insistence on using real life, including his experiences with hatred creates discomfort-but maybe that’s the point. However badly his character behaves both MJF and the man who portray him should be able to live their lives free from hatred and discrimination. We all should.

MJF has wrestled consistently compelling matches and built even less-intriguing main events (like the four corners match or his Collision tilt with Ethan Page) with excellent promo work. He’s engaged AEW’s audience as a full-on anti-hero. It’s a tough character to pull off. MJF readily admits that in-character he’s still a bad person. I don’t think he’s quite at the level of Roddy Piper or Eddie Guerrero or Steve Austin (MJF and Cole turned the Guerrero fake chair shot spot into an extended part of their match at All In) but MJF has fans cheering for him despite cheating constantly and wrestling as an unreconstructed heel. Unlike Austin, who popularized being a ‘cool heel’ there is nothing cool about MJF. He’s even pulled out crooner standards like “Pennies from Heaven” in a singing tribute to his bandleader grandfather.

MJF endears himself to his fans by calling himself “their scumbag,” which is really, really gross if you think about it. His storyline with Cole has blended their affinity for each other with the fact that both men have terrible track records when it comes to on-camera friendships. AEW’s meandering ‘Devil’ storyline would have long since soured if it didn’t weave in the simmering mutual distrust that belies their friendship. This storyline has raised other workers’ profiles, too. It has elevated Matt Taven and Mike Bennett from Ring of Honor reclamation projects and given them airtime across AEW TV. It has also featured Roderick Strong in a semi-comedic role. I’ve always liked all three men, but until now my appreciation was built on their wrestling acumen rather than their charisma.

One of AEW’s more interesting meta plotlines has been ‘the bidding war of 2024’ — the question of whether MJF would stay with that promotion or sign with WWE once his contract is up. This presumes that WWE would be interested in MJF’s services and as important, that they’d use him correctly if he decamped. I should note that as MJF’s world championship run has extended the belief among wrestling media is that he has already re-upped his deal with AEW and is unlikely to go anywhere else.

I think this is for the best. I much prefer having strong acts dispersed among different wrestling companies, with the promise of shaking things up every few years — and WWE’s main event scene is crowded. I like NXT but have no interest in watching MJF fight Baron Corbin. He matches up awkwardly against Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns. Historically I would be worried about his treatment as a competitor’s franchise player. For every AJ Styles who receives respect on entering WWE there are plenty of LA Knights whose talents and accomplishments elsewhere are dismissed in favor of goofy, career-hurting gimmicks. Knight (a former Impact champion) is lucky to have emerged from his stint as Max Dupri. Fellow former champ Karrion Kross is still working on it. Fellow fellow former champs like Bobby Roode and Samoa Joe never got over that hump during their in-ring WWE tenures. In fairness, the recent debuts of Cody Rhodes and the Prodigal CM Punk suggest that WWE may be evolving from outright burials of other companies’ talent and towards using them as effective members of their own roster. We’ll see what happens with Jade Cargill. WWE has taken the position that she needs extensive retraining before she’s ready for their main shows-even as she headlined AEW cards for a year.

MJF is small by WWE standards. He stands a billed 5-foot-11 but in recent photos alongside John Cena (himself a kayfabed 6-foot-1 but acknowledged to be a bit shorter) he looks considerably shorter. MJF has put on plenty of muscle over the past year but as I’ve mentioned that’s a WWE prerequisite for enhancement talent, never mind main eventers. Most importantly MJF’s greatest strength is his work on the microphone where he has taken full advantage of AEW’s unscripted approach to promos. It’s gotten him in trouble on a few occasions in AEW. In WWE’s increasingly tight corporate environment it might well get him fired.

MJF closes out 2023 as he started it: the most compelling act in one of the biggest promotions in the world. He has generated interest for his in-ring work, for his approach to the microphone and his real-life story in wrestling and the world beyond.

He is a worthy recipient of the first ever Golden Schwartz Award.

TOP PHOTO: MJF at AEW Dynamite, at the Liacouras Center, in Philadelphia, on Wednesday, October 25, 2023. Photo by George Tahinos, https://georgetahinos.smugmug.com

RELATED LINK

• MJF story archive
• Previous Wrestlers’ Court columns by Jonathan Schwartz