When All Elite Wrestling (AEW) comes to Australia next month, it will mark the professional wrestling company’s second trip to our shores, but the first for one of its biggest stars and its current World Champion, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF).
The Long Island-born star is not even 30 years old yet and is already one of the biggest names in wrestling. Rising to fame with AEW since its launch in 2019, MJF is a two-time world champion and has memorable feuds with some of the sport’s biggest stars like CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Chris Jericho and Bryan Danielson. So fast was MJF’s rise, there was even speculation that he was being courted by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) before signing a multi-year deal with Tony Khan’s AEW in 2024. Since then, he’s starred in the major Netflix hit, Happy Gilmore 2, and will next appear in the sequel to 2022’s Violent Night.
Speaking to Rolling Stone AU/NZ over Zoom from the US ahead of the AEW shows in Sydney (February 14th) and Brisbane (February 15th), MJF touched on a number of topics, including the upcoming visit, the buzz around professional wrestling in 2026 and the truth behind some of your favourite wrestlers.
You didn’t get to join AEW’s debut trip to Australia last year. Are you looking forward to heading over?
No, I don’t like Australia, but now that I’m the World Champion, I kind of don’t have much of a choice but to visit, so here we are. The main reason why I’m excited to go to Australia, I wanna ride a kangaroo. I’m gonna make this happen. This is about the only thing interesting about Australia to me. Outside of that, I don’t care about koalas, I don’t care about the people.
Thanks for your honesty. AEW has levelled up since you made your return last December. You were out filming a movie, but now you’re back and the champion. What’s the environment like backstage at AEW?
Well, everybody’s very jealous of me, which makes sense ’cause I’m a movie star and I’m the world champion. The environment is, for me, it’s unhealthy, but that’s fine. That’s the way it should be. Everybody wants my spot. But the environment for everybody else is great. Everybody else gets along with everybody else.
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Look, this is a competitive locker room. We have the best professional wrestlers, bell to bell, on the planet, and we have the best, let’s be honest, [I’m] the best talker in, if not the history of the profession, of all time. I’m just being honest. I’m trying to be humble about it. It’s just true.
When you’ve got guys like me, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Samoa Joe, Kyle Fletcher, “Hangman” Adam Page, Swerve Strickland, Konosuke Takeshita, Mark Briscoe. I’ll even say Orange Cassidy even though I think he’s a bum, personally. We have a cast of so many interesting characters, and the fact that we’re taking it now to Sydney, Australia for Grand Slam Australia is a big deal for you guys, I’m just gonna be honest. The fact that this is happening, you should all be thanking us much more.
We could talk for hours about some of the very tribalistic fans of professional wrestling and how there are some that think, for example, you can only watch AEW and not WWE, or vice versa. What’s your take on that?
Wrestling hasn’t been this prevalent since the Attitude era as far as it being a part of the zeitgeist and outside of the bubble. For the longest time when I was growing up as a professional wrestling fan, it was weird to be a pro wrestling fan. It was kind of fringe, you know what I mean? Which is funny, ’cause it’s always been a billion-dollar industry, but now the bubble’s pretty much popped in a good way. There are people talking about pro wrestling, you have guys like me in major motion pictures. This stuff just didn’t happen back in the day, and it’s happening now. It’s happening because of trailblazers like Batista, The Rock, and [John] Cena, but also for me, it means so much to me. That there’s a much bigger, healthier, happier amount of places for professional wrestlers to go.
Forget the fans, I don’t care about the fans. But the fact that the wrestlers now have places to hang their hat more now than ever is really cool. And the fact that when we started that, we became that alternative, we forced WWE or TNA or MLW to go, ‘Oh man, we have to pay our talent more money because there’s a new show in town,’ I think that’s incredible.
So when fans are busy arguing over, you know, my roster is better, our roster is better, whatever…. I love money, but I love wrestling, and I think right now, between us, WWE, TNA, MLW, do I feel we have the best wrestling? Yes. But do I feel that wrestling’s never been in a better place than right now, today, present day? No. So it’s a really exciting time to be a part of this sport, and it’s a really exciting time to be a fan.
When you think about some of the names that have gone between companies – Cody Rhodes and CM Punk went from WWE to AEW and back again, Jon Moxley, Adam Copeland and Bryan Danielson jumped to AEW from WWE, there’s speculation that Chris Jericho who helped launch AEW is heading back to WWE soon. It might be fodder for fans, but do wrestlers feel that tribalism in the same way?
I think in order to be a top name in our industry at a high level for a long period of time – not a short period of time, ’cause there are plenty of people that pull this off in a short period of time – you have to be a fan. You have to be a student of the game. You have to love this shit. You have to be passionate about it to an OCD level. The amount of tape study I’ve done in my life is unhinged. If people knew how much professional wrestling I’ve consumed in the 29 years I’ve been on this planet, they would probably vomit. It’s insane, but that’s how you become the best of the best. That’s how I become MJF. That’s how I become a household name when I’ve never been in the “big promotion” right? As far as Adam Copeland, Jon Moxley, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes. these guys aren’t turning around and saying “F that other company.” They’re not in real life. I’m sorry. They’re just looking for a place to hang their hat.
And then you have certain guys who feel very passionate about the company they’re in, and they would never want to leave, you know? Everybody’s different. Everybody looks at professional wrestling different. Some people look at it as, I love professional wrestling, but I love money more, so I’m gonna go to this place. Some people care more about the creative side of things and feeling free as both an entertainer, an artist, and as a professional athlete.
What I will say is there’s no bad blood between the boys in the companies. It just doesn’t exist.
Your film career has started to take off in recent years, and you mentioned The Rock earlier. If you recall, when he landed The Scorpion King (2002), that was the beginning of the end of his career as a full-time wrestler. How do you see that playing out for yourself?
I love both equally. Knock on wood, when my body starts failing me, I think it’s incredible that I’m gonna have Hollywood to lay my flag down in. But I love doing both. I’m a top guy in this industry. I’m a top name in this industry. To me, holding this title, there’s no bigger honour in this sport, and I feel that way genuinely in my bones, because this is a real professional wrestling world championship. There’s nothing funny about it. There’s nothing sanitary about it. If you want to be considered the best professional wrestler in the world, this is the title you have to hold, point blank.
That to me is as important as being in the top-tier mega motion pictures. They’re both on equal footing to me. And as long as I can do both, I’m going to continue to do both. And that’s why Tony pays me big money, because he knows I’m gonna be able to do both. I will wrestle on a show, get on a private jet, and the next day I’m off a red-eye [flight] with an hour and a half of sleep, I’ll film a whole day for a movie, and then I’ll get on another fucking plane, and then I’ll fly back to another show, and then I’ll do a pay per view.
I’m built different. I love this both I love both things way too much to just be like one or the other.
AEW will hit Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday, February 14th, and Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Sunday, February 15th. Fans will be able to see some of the company’s biggest stars in action, including MJF, Mercedes Moné, “Hangman” Adam Page and Toni Storm. Click here for more details.
