MJF started his storyline with Adam Cole last month, leading to the AEW World Heavyweight Champion going to a 30-minute time-limit draw with him on the June 14 episode of Dynamite.
MJF defended his title against Hiroshi Tanahashi at the AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door pay-per-view event and then against Ethan Page on the July 1 episode of AEW Collision.
MJF and Cole were forced to team together on the July 5 episode of Dynamite when they were paired in the Blind Tag Team Title Tournament to receive an AEW World Tag Team Championship match. In the finals, they won the tournament by defeating The Jericho Appreciation Society (Daniel Garcia and Sammy Guevara). They will now get a title shot on the July 29, 2023, episode of Collision.
In recent weeks, AEW has been doing vignettes of them bonding together.
In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that the storyline has led to big merchandise sales.
Meltzer wrote, “The MJF & Adam Cole T-shirt “Better than You Bay Bay” in the last few weeks since the release has sold more numbers of shirts than any AEW shirt has for all of 2023. It’s also the shirt that has been pushed harder than any shirt on the Dynamite show, particularly by MJF last week.”
The shirt is also the second highest-grossing shirt of the year, just behind an MJF button-down shirt that has a higher price point.
