Jim Cornette, speaking on the latest episode of The Jim Cornette Experience, reviewed AEW WrestleDream this past Sunday. To open the show, AEW World Champion MJF successfully defended the ROH World Tag Team Championships in a handicap match against The Righteous, due to Adam Cole being legitimately injured.
While Cornette has not been the biggest fan of the MJF-Adam Cole-Roddy Strong angle over the past few months, as he made clear here as well, he has conceded that it has been working very well with the audience. As always, he also had big praise for The Devil, expressing his delight at MJF making the most out of however he is presented and being one of the best parts of wrestling today. He said,
“And the pay-per-view opened up with the only smart motherfucker in this company. MJF knew, “Put me on first. I’m going to lay this match out, and hopefully these guys will be able to follow it. I’m not going to get hurt. I’m not going to look like an idiot, and I’m going to get out of there before I get any on me or before it goes any longer in this fucking marathon.” The people’s enthusiasm is worn down, and it’s exactly what he did. He’s a goddamn genius; he’s Leonard Bernstein. He is playing the fans and the opponents and Tony and everybody else like a goddamn fiddle. No matter what kind of stupid angle they put him in, when he’s out there, where it’s left up to him, rather than these buddy comedy videos or whatever, or he’s in a match, he’ll figure out a way to make sense out of it. It’s like watching Lawler work the Midsouth Coliseum in Memphis with some green football player. He’ll just work to that guy’s ability level, and he’ll come up with some shit that makes the people pop, even though nothing’s fucking happening. He’s a genius.”
Running down the pre-match promo and the match, Corny continued,
“Um, and he cut the promo to lay it out. He set up the deal of the match, got to defend the belts, keeping it for my good buddy Adam. And then he tells the people what he’s going to do; he’s going to body slam the fat guy, and he’s going to stick Vinnie’s head up the fat guy’s ass. And then they put the match together based on him trying to do that, and it was great. And they got a little heat on him. And then, you know, Vinnie tried to use the chair, but MJF grabbed his nuts and then made a comeback and body slammed Dutch. And the people hit their feet and gave him a standing ovation for a body slam and chanted “holy shit.” And then he ran Vince’s head into Dutch’s ass and hit the kangaroo kick and the heat seeker on Dutch, one, two, three.”
Lamenting MJF’s booking, Cornette said that MJF ultimately got away with it, as he mostly does.
So again, despite the ridiculousness of having the AEW World Champion involved in this whole thing that we’ve talked about earlier in an opening match against an unknown team that’s just started, but he made it work. At least it didn’t sell any pay-per-views, didn’t draw any money, it didn’t sell any tickets, but he didn’t look like a goddamn idiot. He got away with it.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit ‘The Jim Cornette Experience’ with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.