MJF has been a member of AEW since February of 2019, when he joined the promotion's inaugural class of talent. At the time, Maxwell Jacob Friedman wasn't supposed to become a main event star and didn't have much pedigree to professional wrestling fans outside of the North East and/or devotees of Court Bauer's Major League Wrestling; no, at the time, MJF was known almost exclusively as Cody Rhodes' friend, one-third of The Dynasty who was tasked with playing a babyface despite very clearly being a heel. Still, MJF put in the work, stole the show every time he was put in a position to do so, and even looked good in the ring on the rare occasion where he was actually afforded a chance to wrestle, which didn't happen often but hey.

Now firmly in place as AEW's top star, with a shiny new World Championship belt to prove it, folks are already wondering what his title reign will look like and how the promotion will progress into the future. Will MJF elevate AEW to new heights? Or will the promotion flounder without a proven star on top? Fortunately, one person who firmly believes AEW is in good hands is Matt Hardy, who took to his who decided to talk on the subject on his The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, as transcribed by Fightful.

“It was an interesting move, for sure, but it is very on brand for the MJF character, I think,” Hardy said. “I’m really excited about MJF’s run as champion. I’m a big fan of Maxwell Jacob Friedman. So it’s gonna be really interesting to see how the people gravitate towards him as champion, and considering he is gonna be the centerpiece of the promotion, it’s gonna be really interesting to see how it does number-wise, from ratings and buy rates and whatever else. But I feel like more than anyone, MJF is the most home-grown AEW talent, even more than Hangman Page because I feel like Hangman Page was the first real homegrown talent that actually won the title, but he also had a big run in Ring of Honor, and he worked in Japan. This is really MJF’s first run on top, and now he is representing AEW as the champ, and I think it’s a good move. I’m all for it, and I truly believe, deep in my heart, I think MJF is gonna be the face of AEW for a long time to come.”

Will MJF be the face of AEW into the future like Chris Jericho was in 2019, Jon Moxley was in 2020, and folks like Kenny Omega, “Hangman” Adam Page, and even his old rival CM Punk were in 2021 and 2022? Only time will tell, but with the belt around his waist, AEW is MJF's world, and we're all living in it.

Matt Hardy shoots on wrestling his AEW coworker Jeff Jarrett at WrestleCade.

If Hardy is excited to see MJF reign over the AEW as the promotion's new star, one performer he isn't quite as excited to see in the ring is Jeff Jarrett, “The Last Outlaw” who once caused him to have to get 36 stitches after taking a particularly brutal guitar shot at WrestleCade in 2015. When he was approached about taking part in a rematch of that infamous bout in 2022 against his now-co-worker, Hardy was taken aback but ultimately receptive, as he also detailed on his podcast, as per Fightful.

“Can you imagine the shock in my mind whenever I got a call from the booker, the promoter at WrestleCade, said ‘Hey, would you be down for wrestling Jeff Jarrett?” Hardy said. “Considering you have an open contract and you kinda laid out a challenge [for] whoever wants to face you.’ It was shocking, it was shocking to hear. I was like, ‘Of course.’ I didn’t expect that. As I said last week on the podcast, we never had a return singles match after he recklessly sliced me open with that guitar. So he had a reprieve, but this Saturday, the reprieve ends.”

Oh no, things are going go, like, really good, or really bad, right? Either Hardy and Jarrett worked a wonderful contest and come out of it in a better place – which would be useful, what with them now being AEW co-workers – or they'll kill each other and have a very weird time when they both show up to work on Wednesday. Either way, Hardy is down.

“Someone is gonna get hurt [in the match], for sure,” Hardy said. “We’re on a minimal interaction level. If we have to talk about something, I guess we will. But as I said, we don’t send each other Christmas cards, we don’t invite each other’s families other to Thanksgiving dinner or whatever. I’ve got a feeling, when it’s all said and done, either this match is gonna turn out really bad and controversial, which people would probably like if that happens anyway, especially if our wives are around. They’re both gonna be there, which is scary in itself. Or maybe there’s some way we come out of this with a newfound respect. I don’t know what direction it’s gonna go. The biggest thing I can say is, this match is a wildcard. I was gonna say this incident happened seven years ago, but we’ve been, probably four, five years of just not associating with each other at all. So this is gonna be really interesting to see how this match turns out.”

If you aren't much of a WWE person and want to instead see what's going on with two of AEW's oldest stars, tune into WrestleCade and see what happens.