MJF’s third AEW world title reign (re)starts in familiar territory

Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

MJF.

Mister Devil.

Generational talent.

Champion.

Those are the monikers we’ve come to know him by, and with Hangman Page in the shadows for the time being — perhaps until he returns — it’s a fair statement to claim he’s also the centrepiece of AEW. The shows, the company, and especially recently the AEW championship revolve around him.

Since reclaiming the title in December — a high point on its own — MJF’s second and now third reign have followed a pattern. It’s one that already feels as though it’s restarted tonally from prior to Darby Allin securing his first AEW championship. Beforehand MJF had Andrade eyeing him. Kenny Omega also wanted his second dance with the devil by the pale moonlight. While those two were the top of the heap, you still had Allin skating around like the purebred looney he is warning Maxwell that he was coming for him. Meanwhile, Hangman was also front and centre willing to stake everything on one last shot to dethrone MJF. Sprinkled throughout those he also had defences against Bandido, Brody King and Kevin Knight.

Ironically enough, for as much he made Allin’s pace out to be a wholesale negative, MJF defended the AEW championship 7 times in four months, and to put that into perspective, he had 10 successful defences in his first reign over 400+ days.

MJF has become a Darby Allin fan?

The Pillars of MJF’s 2026

There have been two standout aspects of MJF’s 2026. In different ways his feuds with Hangman Page and Allin have stood out above the general noise of his other would-be challengers because the narrative they constructed around themselves made it feel important as opposed to the more mundane tones of “I’m a dude and I want that fancy belt you got there.”

Those tones are fine as starting points because it paints an image where it’s obvious everyone is gunning for the champion. They should. On their own those declarations of intent make MJF seem important and puts him on his heels because even as a heel champion he’s being forced to work hard to defend his title. In terms of pacing, in his first reign Friedman defended the championship 11 times against 12 different challengers before losing the title to Samoa Joe on his 11th defence.

Combining his second and third reigns together, and including his upcoming defence against Rush, in 2026 alone MJF will have defended his championship 9 times against a new challenger in each outing. Adding on any other TV defences he might have on top of likely matches at Redemption, Forbidden Door and All In, his body of work will eclipse his first run in terms of the optics of being a working, fighting champion who also infrequently defends outside the company.

Amidst all of those though are Page, Allin, and Omega to a degree. They offered something different while everyone was focused just on Max himself or the prestige of the championship, and that was the story. In one respect that’s still true of Omega, but the crux of his pursuit was premised on their first meeting and Omega’s failing health. The story that was told demonstrated MJF still had the edge on Omega, but he also had to resign himself to using his ring to topple the first domino toward a second defeat of “The Best Bout Machine.”

Hangman and Allin are different tonally and philosophically because what those feuds were built on were narratives of what AEW was intended to be vs. what it is becoming under MJF as champion, and specifically with Allin, what it means to be not just a fighting champion, but full stop what it means to be a champion at all. And within those two arguments there’s overlap between Page and Allin.

Hangman Page – What it means to be the “main character” in AEW

As world champion Page was every bit the fighting champion in 2025 as Allin was. Over the course of his five month reign he defended the title 6 times, but did so in no holds barred style matches, steel cages, and regained the championship in a Texas Death Match. Ironically, he was also removed indefinitely from title contention due to a loss to MJF in a Texas Death Match. Those are just the matches though, that isn’t only what we’re looking at.

When Page and MJF’s tensions came to a boil, Page continually made reference to his belief that AEW and the world title were things that needed to be saved from MJF. The implication was that Max’s egocentric, unbound narcissism and brand of wrestling tactics — although successful — were not what AEW embodied and much less what it meant to be “elite.” And yeah, that sounds like a trope and you’d be right. However, as that might be true, their characters have a completely different view of what is best for AEW, and that’s where their conflict is always going to be situated. They might not like each other; Page and MJF don’t wrestle the same way, nor think or act the same way. They will never agree on what it means to be champion, and that’s where their eternal dance to the death gets its gravity.

That’s why Page was willing to sacrifice everything because it was understood MJF needed to be stopped. The failing in that effort was rooted in circumstance, sure, but you could also argue that this version of Page didn’t go far enough considering the stakes. It’s somewhat in the same vein as how in most stories about Superman where you understood he can do anything, is grounded in what he thinks is right and wrong, but there will always be a line he won’t cross. That’s the “why” of the loss, because MJF will always be willing to go that much farther than someone who has limits.

What their feud was though was one that set the parameters for their characters, especially MJF who got his big win, eliminated the competition as “main character” and believed himself to be untouchable. He “won” in his eyes, and even though he’d still go to defeat Omega a month later, that really just reinforced his perspective. Ultimately while the villain won, and his view of the world prevailed as he defeated founding members of AEW while holding on to the AEW championship, that ego left him unprepared for something and someone who had no limits and a death wish. Simply put, Darby Allin.

Darby Allin’s Roy Batty approach to being champion

(You don’t need to watch all of Blade Runner, but head over to YouTube when you have a second and watch the Roy Batty “Tears in the Rain” monologue. Here’s a quick explainer of the monologue too if you’re not familiar at all with the film.)

Allin’s run as AEW champion burned four times as bright and a fraction the length of most reigns. However, if you look down the list of AEW world title reigns that lasted less than 50-60 days, tell me what you remember of them. Even more broadly beyond AEW, what do you remember of short reigns at all? What stood out? Sure, I think everyone can muster up at least one great, short reign and they’d have the data to back that up.

Specifically in the context of AEW, honestly ask yourself which short reigns you remember and why. Do you remember, for example, Mox’s blowout of Punk, only to drop it back to Phillip weeks later? Do you remember anything of Samoa Joe’s second reign? The big thing I remember from Mox’s reign that fall was his “legend” promo after Punk was stripped. After that, “question mark?” Historically most AEW title runs we have had have lasted at least 100 days. Yet Allin and Bryan Danielson stand alone at the end here, and whichever you brand as the better one is up to you. I think they’re neck and neck for different reasons.

There are comparisons between the two Washington state boys in that you knew their reigns were both on borrowed time. You knew the car crash was coming and there was going to be an emphatic end. It didn’t matter if it was going to be due to the BCC/Death Riders or a crash of their own design, neither reign was destined — nor built — to last. Where I kind of lean toward Allin though is the body of work within the reign.

To be fair, Danielson’s neck was basically held together by super glue, gumption, duct tape and a shoelace, and because of that he only wrestled six times after he won the championship. That included a grudge match with Nigel McGuinness and two successful title defences. And then it was was over.

Darby Allin’s reign within the shadow of MJF’s disapproval hits within the same beats, and hilariously so, inverts the dynamic that MJF finds himself on between his time with Page and now Allin. MJF became the man disagreeing with how Allin carried himself as champion. MJF was now the one believing that AEW needed to be saved from Darby’s brand of insanity. There’s no wrong answer though, regardless of the contrast of Allin hitting hard, fast and flaming out in the end put against MJF.

Allin had an undeniable, fiery impact in a very short window of time. Within that time — all 39 days of it — he burned so very brightly.

What it means to be champion

Do you see how that perspective can flip so easily? That’s the point. There is no right way to be champion. There’s personalization of what that means to the person holding it to carry it and themselves in a way that is true to them.

For Page that means holding it proudly and standing for something true, while learning from your mistakes and standing up despite them. And above all, being willing to fail and stand up again. Where MJF is concerned, that means standing tall, chest puffed out all the time no matter what. Consequences be damned so long as at the end of the night, his hand is raised by hook, crook, subterfuge, assassination and maybe a kick to the nethers every so often if it clinches the win. To him it’s the money, prestige and status that comes with being champion that matters, and much like Page, any contrast to that seems insane. But that’s what defines his second and third reigns.

So when we come to Darby and the role reversal where Allin has become MJF and Max has become Hangman in terms of how they interact, the same definitions apply because Allin’s brutish run, as short as it was, was wholly true to who he was. I’m sure he’s lost count of times he’s nearly almost actually died in his life, and his approach to life is defined by being willing to take risks and live a little, especially if that risk is something like Everest. Everything else becomes small by comparison, so once that capacity and ceiling for fear is raised, defending the title like he did is nothing to him. It’s those elements of being a daredevil that MJF can’t understand, they are ways he can never agree with. Even though Darby’s way is no more right or wrong than another, regardless MJF gets the last laugh to begin his third reign.

The point though is the definition of what being a champion means has been tackled in three different ways, even with a short Joe reign sprinkled in there. And maybe that too has value, because for as dominant as Joe can be, a reign can end as quickly as it began because the competition dictates the pace and volatility of how hotly contested a championship is. Coyly a product of “where the best wrestle,” sure, but looking at just these three we’ve been given three different philosophies in five months on what it means to be a world champion in AEW. No way is wrong, nor are they 100% correct. They’re just perspectives that are personalized and defined by what they think is important. Some are insane, some are wholesome and true, and some just want to make money and forge a legacy. This is wrestling though, and those are all fine because they give the entire landscape character.

Whether you actually want to cast Page as Superman, MJF as Lex Luthor, and Darby as some Batman-Joker hybrid, those are all valid. Perhaps this goes back as far as Moxley defeating Danielson and shifting the narrative of what a championship means, but for a company to be built around a moniker its wrestlers can’t possibly maintain all the time, for the last two years its world championship has been the centrepiece for this conversation. The characters who have held it have made it their own, with their reigns defining it and forging its value. This won’t last forever, but to write off any of these reigns — even Darby’s — is foolish.

Say what you will, but his character ultimately stands out the most and not just due to recency bias. It will be memorable not just for it being short, but for what he did with it in the time he had.

MJF’s Path Ahead

Those interactions over the last five months stand out above the simple defences. That’s fine too, as peaks and valleys give MJF’s reigns weight. That doesn’t mean though that we can act like Allin and Page’s feuds with MJF are on the same level as Omega and Briscoe’s feuds, and then similarly compare both sets against matches with Kevin Knight, Brody King, Rush, or Zilla Fatu. These are different types of interactions, but together give him balance. One is borderline philosophical and equally personal. The second is both personal and competitive in nature, and the third are pure tests of mettle.

However, where I wonder as we go forward into the summer is where MJF’s third reign is going. Logically there’s a date with Ospreay in the U.K., but how will that look? Will it be more Page and Allin, or given their history, more in tune with Omega and Briscoe? It’s one or the other most certainly, but what’s concerning days into his third reign is that we’re already retreading the template of his second reign where everyone is ready to come at him while the Owen brackets sort themselves out. Until then, this feels too much the same to the point where the valley might potentially end up feeling more like a lull until August.

Who can guess where Briscoe falls? AEW Redemption in Montreal? What about beyond that? Who does he wrestle at Forbidden Door if not someone from the NJPW roster? Andrade perhaps? A Yota Tsuji-MJF match might be fun, but I don’t think that happens if he’s holding the IWGP title. Maybe a Callum Newman match could setup and segway into Ospreay, and maybe you want to do something crazy and have Newman turn on Ospreay win or lose. Who knows?

The trajectory of the title needs to stay consistent, and like it or not, right now MJF has become the main character of AEW. If he’s the standard and you hate him for it, and the people who are willing to stand against him are defined by what he isn’t, there’s still room for others to simply come along and test his moniker of being better than everyone else. However, that can’t just be the point of the competition, which is where I wanted to take time to pause since that was the tone of Wednesday’s Dynamite.

The AEW championship has been the focal point for diverse avenues to help characterize it and the champions, and that has helped make their title runs worth watching. 2026 has been defined by high points and low points, big feuds and tiny moments that together have made it one of the drawing points of AEW. There’s a good balance in place and I think it’s important to maintain that tone.