Rant #3,182: Honesty

OK, say what you want to say about professional wrestling, but it is a global phenomenon that isn’t going away anytime soon.

There are three major pro wrestling organizations: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which dwarfs the others in scope and worldwide appeal; All-Elite Wrestling (AEW),which at only four years old, has hedged into WWE’s territory and appeal using a mix of former WWE wrestlers and its own homegrown stars, sprinkled with a lot of money and TV exposure; and Impact Wrestling a distant third, but a nice alternative to the bombastic nature of the other two with some excellent performers.

Today, I would like to talk about AEW, the young upstart, and a guy that I have spoken about before, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, better known as MJF.

The one thing that all three of these organizations share is that they work real-life experiences of their stable of wrestlers into the storylines presented on these telecasts, and build upon those storylines during the lucrative pay per views that they offer fans—AEW’s are $49.99 a pop, so these PPVs are a lucrative business.

Anyway, MJF—a young 20-something from Plainview, Long Island, New York—is not only an impressive wrestler, but he has terrific microphone skills, which is almost as important as having great wrestling skills when you are trying to spin yourself to the crowd and to the home audience.

MJF has turned himself into the top villain in AEW shaping his narrative as “The Devil,” and wearing his Jewishness on his sleeve like no other Jewish wrestler has in the history of pro wrestling.

In the past, he has spoken about how it went growing up Jewish and with various learning disabilities in Plainview, a middle to upper middle class area with a large Jewish population, and MJF has told viewers time and time again that it wasn’t an easy ride for him, even when he became a coveted high school football player for JFK High School, the same high school my daughter graduated from a few years earlier.

He has done other things to highlight his Jewishness and his character as “The Devil,” including wearing a scarf around his neck that acts as kind of a stand-in for a religious “Talis” that bar mitzvah youngsters earn on the day that, at least religiously, a boy turns into a man after he reads his Haftorah.

He has had a re-bar mitzvah event right in the middle of the ring, and again, being AEW’s top villain, he portrays himself as “The Devil,” which is a Jewish stereotype that goes back generations.

But he weaves this so perfectly into his villain persona that there isn’t really a bit of anti-Semitism thrown at him; the crowd clearly gets it to the max,and he is such a “good” bad guy that he is one of the most popular of AEW’s stable of wrestlers, the guy you love to hate.

Anyway, last night—in the midst of a reboot as a good guy—he laid bare more episodes of his past, and even if you aren’t a fan, the way he handled what he said made you sit up and listen.

On yesterday’s broadcast, MJF shared that he lives with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and a related syndrome called Rejection Sensitive Disorder.

According to Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/201907/what-is-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria), that people with this disorder, or as it describes it as a dysphoria, have an emotional reaction to negative judgments, exclusion, or criticism that goes far beyond the norm.

Other people may see those with RSD as overly perfectionist, overly-sensitive, or overly reactive to even the mildest criticism.

I had never heard of this ailment, but he helped to further define his ADD and RSD by recalling a childhood incident, where other kids threw quarters at him and forced him to pick up each coin while deriding his Jewishness, an incident that he said further heightened these ailments, and a story that has remained with him for his entire life.

As he spoke, one thing led to the other, and not only did he play out his “devil” persona but in a good way, he led the crowd in chanting a negative moniker which I will not repeat here, doing it as if they were cheering for their favorite wrestler, which MJF has become because he is so good at being a bad guy.

Adam Cole, another terrific wrestler who has had his moments as one of the top heels in pro wrestling but is now a good guy, was given kudos by MJF for reforming him, and all of this led up to the two of them fighting for the AEW championship at the upcoming All-In PPV event at Wembley Stadium in London, England on August 27.

Sure, it is pure show business, pure sports entertainment, but MJF’s candor about real events in his personal life is really refreshing, and while there have been many Jewish wrestlers through the years—everyone from Goldberg to Kane—no one wears his Jewishness on his sleeve better than MJF.

To me, he IS the reason to watch AEW Wrestling each week on TNT and TBS, whether you are a pro wrestling fan or not.

With his candor, Maxwell Jacob Friedman has truly made himself into a “real” person, and that is an anomaly in pro wresting, where fake feuds and scripted storylines usually rule the roost.