AEW WrestleDream: MJF Retains ROH Tag Titles By Himself

Liam Crowley

10/01/2023 08:24 pm EDT

Maxwell Jacob Friedman entered the Climate Pledge Arena facing an uphill battle The AEW World Champion was set to defend the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships alongside partner Adam Cole in a standard title defense against The Righteous, but an ill-timed injury to Cole left the self-proclaimed generational talent at a handicap disadvantage. This past Wednesday on AEW Dynamite, Cole teased that his ankle injury was going to force he and MJF to vacate their tag gold, but MJF insisted on carrying on the reign. As a result, MJF walked into AEW WrestleDream by his lonesome, defending the titles in a handicap match against Vincent and Dutch.

MJF Retains ROH Tag Titles By Himself

(Photo: AEW)

The Devil works harder.

Maxwell Jacob Friedman defeated The Righteous in a 2-on-1 handicap match to kick off AEW WrestleDream, retaining his ROH Tag Titles in the process. MJF was up to his usual tweener shenanigans throughout the bout, taking shortcuts wherever he could to get one over on The Righteous. He would get the decisive 1-2-3 with help from having his feet on the ropes, but referee Bryce Remsberg did not notice.

This continues MJF and Cole's ROH Tag Title reign that began at AEW ALL IN: London this past August. The two men have just one successful title defense together, as they defeated Dark Order to keep the gold at September's AEW All Out.

Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for live coverage of AEW WrestleDream.

AEW WrestleDream 2023 Card

AEW TNT Championship (Two Out of Three Falls): Christian Cage (c) vs. Darby Allin
Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
"Hangman" Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland
AEW World Tag Team Championships: FTR (c) vs. Aussie Open
Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi vs. Konosuke Takeshita, Sammy Guevara, and Will Ospreay (w/ Don Callis)
AEW World Tag Team Championship No.1 Contender's Match: Young Bucks vs. The Gunns vs. Lucha Brothers vs. Orange Cassidy and Hook
ROH and NJPW Strong Championships: Eddie Kingston (c) vs. Katsuyori Shibata
AEW TBS Championship: Kris Statlander (c) vs. Julia Hart
Ricky Starks vs. Wheeler Yuta
ROH Tag Team Championships (Handicap Match): MJF (c) def. The Righteous
Zero Hour: Luchasaurus def. Nick Wayne
AEW World Trios Championships, Zero Hour: The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn (c) def. TMDK
Zero Hour: Satoshi Kojima, Keith Lee, Athena and Billie Starkz def. Shane Taylor, Lee Moriarty, Diamante and Mercedes Martinez
Zero Hour: Claudio Castagnoli def. Josh Barnett

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