AEW World Champion MJF will look to call out Samoa Joe on this week’s AEW Dynamite following their encounter at the All Out pay-per-view this past Sunday. The story between the two actually goes back years, long before All Elite Wrestling was even a promotion. Back at the NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II event in 2016 Joe was the reigning NXT Champion and was set to defend his title against Shinsuke Nakamura in the pay-per-view’s main event. A segment just before the match saw Joe walking down a backstage hallway as he made his way to the entrance ramp, casually shoving a security guard aside when they got too close. That guard was actually a young MJF.
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Max would later parody that segment on AEW programming and even claimed in an (in-character) interview that the old clip of Joe shoving him was fake.
“I don’t know who that guy was,” Max told Inside The Ropes in 2020 (h/t Fightful). “A lot of people think it was me, that was not me. It’s fake news. I’ll admit it, the guy did vaguely look like me, but I didn’t see it to such an extent that everybody else did. That security guard, it seemed like he was trying to do his best job, protecting Joe, getting in front of him, the wall was closing in. If anything, I would have given that guy a raise, but that was not me. It wouldn’t shock me (if my identity was stolen), a lot of people are trying to steal a lot of different things from me.”
But when Joe casually shoved Friedman at All Out, the reigning AEW World Champion dropped the charade. He tweeted out shortly after the segment, “I’m not the kid you shoved in Brooklyn, motherf—er. Game on.” Joe took a different route, continuing to poke fun at Max.
Max, despite a nagging neck injury, and Adam Cole successfully retained their ROH World Tag Team Championships in the opening match of the All Out pay-per-view. While the next challenger for his AEW World Championship will be determined via a tournament, it’s unclear if Joe will get a shot ahead of AEW Grand Slam later this month.
AEW Dynamite Card (Sept. 6, 2023)
- AEW International Championship: Jon Moxley vs. AR Fox
- AEW TBS Championship: Kris Statlander vs. Emi Sakura
- Grand Slam World Title Eliminator Tournament: Roderick Strong vs. Trent Beretta
- Grand Slam World Title Eliminator Tournament: Darby Allin vs. Nick Wayne
- Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Aussie Open
- Promos from MJF & Hangman Page
AEW All Out 2023 Results
- (Zero Hour) Adam “Hangman Page Wins the Over Budget Battle Royale
- (Zero Hour) Hikaru Shida, Willow Nightingale & Skye Blue def. Athena, Mercedes Martinez & Diamante
- (Zero Hour) AEW World Trios Championships: The Acclaimed def. Jeff Jarrett, Satnam Singh & Jay Lethal
- ROH World Tag Team Championships: MJF & Adam Cole def. The Dark Order
- ROH World Television Championship: Samoa Joe def. Shane Taylor
- AEW TNT Championship: Luchasaurus def. Darby Allin
- Miro def. Powerhouse Hobbs
- AEW TBS Championship: Kris Statlander def. Ruby Soho
- Bryan Danielson vs. Ricky Starks (Strap Match)
- Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta def. Eddie Kingston & Katsuyori Shibata
- Konosuke Takeshita def. Kenny Omega
- Bullet Club Gold def. The Young Bucks & FTR
- AEW International Championship: Jon Moxley def. Orange Cassidy
