McGuire’s Mondays: MJF, Britt Baker and the evolution of AEW

If you either die a hero or live long enough to be a villain, at what point do you just not matter at all?

Of all the acts that have been with AEW since Day One, there are two that I would have never predicted would lose some of their juice only five years into this thing: MJF and Britt Baker. If you would have told me Orange Cassidy’s act would ultimately burn out, I would have bought that. Dark Order? Sure. Jake Hager? Where is he anymore, anyways?

But Baker and Friedman? No. Not even a little bit. They were young stars who cut the hell out of some promos and weren’t bad in the ring, either. Baker felt like a breath of fresh air, tasked with carrying the early days of the company’s women’s division and doing so via the use of sheer will. Friedman, meanwhile, played understudy to Cody Rhodes before inevitably turning on him and launching himself into the upper tier of AEW’s roster. These things all felt like they happened overnight, and despite the criticisms being lobbed at Tony Khan’s startup, it appeared that he’d at least always have those two slam dunks of talent that he could go to whenever he needed to be sure something – a promo, a segment, a program – would work.

And yet here we are on the eve of the company’s biggest event of the year, All In, and something about those two stars feels off. Baker is working with one of AEW’s biggest recent acquisitions, Mercedes Mone, while MJF is … well, working with one of AEW’s biggest recent acquisitions, too, Will Ospreay. Both are coming back from significant time away due to injuries. Both returned to great fanfare. And both …

… Don’t have as much steam behind them as they once did?

We can debate why it might feel like that for days. The recent reports detailing a backstage altercation Baker and Friedman found themselves in a few weeks ago didn’t do either of them any favors – babyface or heel, in-character or not, both MJF and the DMD have always oozed a certain level of entitlement that can be used for both good and bad in the pro wrestling world – but even if you discard that, there are other behind the scenes stories that ultimately make both individuals feel grating at times. The Baker/Thunder Rosa stuff. That time MJF (maybe?) threatened to not show up at a Double Or Nothing. There was a time when these things could be easily forgiven; these days, it’s tiresome enough to actually result in a net negative for their pro wrestling characters in the eyes of this viewer.

Weirdly enough, they serve as a microcosm of the company for which they work. Blast out of the gate and take the world by storm. Immediately get on a winning streak that feels like it could never end. The times are good. The business is growing. The mistakes are few and when they do come, they are almost immediately forgiven. A rumor about some backstage drama here? Eh, who cares – did you see that great promo MJF cut?! A Big Ticket match where perhaps the work underdelivered? Wait, but how awesome was that segment with Baker and Rebel and Jamie Hayter?! So many negatives were ignored in part because we trusted the talent to continuously be as entertaining as they’ve always been for as long as there’s a TBS or a TNT willing to give them time.

Or, that is, unless they just aren’t anymore.

The thing about building a pro wrestling company from scratch is that you’re building a pro wrestling company from scratch. It’s a blank canvas. And at the time AEW came around, this was an industry that desperately needed someone to take that blank canvas and start drawing. Blood was back in pro wrestling! The term “sports entertainment” was dying a slow, necessary death! Silliness was fading away! An emphasis on in-ring action emerged! The list goes on and on. Any pro wrestling fan was willing to run through a wall for AEW based merely on the fundamental reality that AEW existed. Oh, so maybe those Dark Order extras were throwing some embarrassing punches in those early days. But this is the company that brought CM Punk back!

These days, it’s a different AEW. Every few weeks or so, I see someone in the pro wrestling space talk or write about how the company is “returning to the way it was.” Conversely, if I never hear the phrase “all the way back” ever again in my life, it’ll be too soon. Even so, the truth is that AEW will never be what it once was. That’s gone. It’s in a box. It’s on a shelf. It will never be opened. Because it can’t open. It won’t open. It’s impossible to open. The circumstances surrounding the launch of AEW are entirely different from the circumstances under which the pro wrestling landscape operates today. AEW can put on great shows and sign great wrestlers and provide a space for great matches. But AEW will never be the AEW of old again. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just a fact.

So, now what? It’s a question I couldn’t help but ask myself both in the context of MJF and Britt Baker, and the company writ large. Can Baker’s act become hot or interesting again? Can MJF’s act become hot or interesting again?. Can AEW become hot or interesting again?

Those things are worth pondering when you see some of the numbers for some of the live shows they have planned. AEW’s Grand Slam event, historically has been, um, a Grand Slam in terms of advance ticket sales. This time around? A recent check in on how things are going revealed that less than 3,500 tickets have been sold thus far. Arthur Ashe Stadium can look mighty empty if there’s only about 4,000 people in it. You hate to see that with only about one month to go until the show happens.

And so it must be said: It’s reasonable to argue that like MJF and Baker, AEW is somewhat a victim of its own success. Maybe it was too much too soon. Maybe some people puffed their chests out just a little too much as they tasted that first bite of consequential mainstream success. Maybe there was a plan to just get it out there, go balls to the wall, and see how the cards fell. And maybe any plan beyond considering the many different ways the cards could fall was never really considered. And maybe thinking on their feet isn’t one of AEW’s, Baker’s or Friedman’s strengths (even if each one of those entities had us thinking otherwise for varying degrees of time).

Or maybe, just maybe, the worst has happened: Nobody became a hero, but nobody is a villain, either. How a wrestler or a company regains that type of prominence when neither of those options are available is a question that will be fascinating to watch as AEW turns its next page after its biggest weekend.