MJF and Adam Cole failed in their attempt to win the AEW World Tag Team Championships from FTR on Saturday night’s AEW Collision. And while it looked like Friedman would react to the loss by betraying Cole (as many expected, including Cole himself), the pair simply embraced as the show went off the air to indicate their friendship hasn’t ended (at least for now). But once the cameras stopped rolling Friedman seemed to tip his hand at the idea that he’ll be back to his monstrous ways soon enough, making a reference to his “Bidding War of 2024.”
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For those out of the loop, Friedman has made it clear for well over a year that he intends to let his current AEW contract expire at the start of 2024, forcing both AEW and WWE to start a bidding war over the young world champion all while holding AEW’s top prize hostage. He hasn’t brought up the idea nearly as much over the past few months, but the idea has lingered over the entirety of his AEW World Championship reign. It’s also unclear as to how much of Friedman’s contract situation with AEW is part of a storyline as he’s notorious for not breaking character in interviews.ย
“I don’t wanna hear about Collision vs Dynamite. Kaboomers vs. Colliders, cause at the end of the day, what this sport needed was an alternative and that’s why this company was made. We are all team AEW… for now until 2024. But that’s fine, we can talk about that later,” Friedman said.
AEW Collision Results (July 29, 2023)
- Andrade El Idolo def. Buddy Matthews (Ladder Match)
- Darby Allin def. Minoru Suzuki
- Samoa Joe def. Gravity
- Bullet Club Gold (Juice Robinson & The Gunns) def. El Hijo Del Vikingo, Action Andretti & Darius Martin
- Mercedes Martinez def. Kiera Hogan
- AEW World Tag Team Championships: FTR def. MJF & Adam Cole
AEW Dynamite 200th Episode Special Card (Aug. 2, 2023)
- AEW Women’s World Championship: Toni Storm vs. Hikaru Shida
- ROH World Tag Team Championships: Aussie Open vs. El Hijo Del Vikingo & Komander
- Chris Jericho & Konosuke Takeshita vs. Sammy Guevara & Daniel Garcia
- Jon Moxley vs. Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Trent Beretta (Anything Goes)
- Jack Perry & Jerry Lynn Face-to-Face
CM Punk’s “Real” AEW World Championship
CM Punk once again declared himself as the “Real” AEW World Champion on this week’s AEW Collision, confirming that he’s been carrying around the title in his bag since returning from injury. Punk pointed out that he was never beaten for the championship and agreed to defend it on next week’s Collision against Ricky Starks (who now has two wins over Punk) with Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat as the special guest referee.
