MJF has framed the current wrestling moment as a paradigm shift, telling Ariel Helwani that disenfranchised WWE and TKO fans are now actively trying AEW and finding they like what they see.
Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show ahead of his Title vs Hair main event against Darby Allin at AEW Double or Nothing on Sunday, MJF said the cultural opening for AEW right now is the post-WrestleMania 42 frustration aimed at WWE.
“Right now, wrestling fans are a little bit disenfranchised with WWE and TKO. There are plenty of people on that roster that I’m big fans of. There are plenty of people in that office that I’m big fans of, but it is allowing people to finally, if they’ve not taken that leap yet, to be like, ‘Okay, I’ve been drinking Diet Coke. Let me try Pepsi.’ So now people are trying Pepsi and they’re going, ‘Hmm, not bad.'”
He then borrowed Jon Moxley’s framing to make the larger point.
“And it’s a cool time. It’s cool time to be an AEW fan. It’s cool time to be MJF. It’s a cool time to be a professional wrestling fan because it feels like once again there’s another paradigm shift happening, to quote Jon Moxley. There was a paradigm shift happening in 2019 and now there’s a paradigm shift happening in 2026.”
The 2019 reference is to AEW’s launch and Double or Nothing in May of that year in Las Vegas, which Moxley publicly framed at the time as the start of a paradigm shift in the wrestling industry. The 2026 framing positions the current AEW moment as a sequel, with the WWE post-WrestleMania 42 controversies, including the cuts wave, the New Day pay-cut situation, and the broader TKO-side concerns
WrestleVotes reported that AEW houses are up year over year in most US territories. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that some WWE-internal sources have been spreading word that AEW will not land a major TV deal once its current Warner Bros. Discovery contract expires at the end of 2027, a claim Tony Khan publicly denied at the ROH Supercard of Honor scrum last week. Double or Nothing has surpassed 13,800 distributed tickets at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing, NY, and is on pace to become the second-biggest-grossing domestic pay-per-view in AEW history.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit The Ariel Helwani Show and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
