Cody vs MJF: The Worst Feud in Professional Wrestling
Before I explain why the Cody/MJF feud is actually bad I would like to acknowledge that the feud is working for their audience and it is getting real heat. The crowd is fully behind Cody and they want to see MJF get his. Beyond that I really do not care about this feud and I don’t care about the reactions it’s getting.
The Cody/MJF feud is possibly the most overrated feud in professional wrestling and is the worst feud going on at the moment. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been some good moments, but at the core it is a lazily done, tropey mess. The terrible MJF character, the lazy writing and the rushed relationship between MJF and Cody are the reasons why this feud is not good.
MJF is the most overrated wrestler in the world. He is almost at Baron Corbin levels. He gets praised for his “amazing heel work” by wrestling fans and pundits across the industry. His heel work consists of insultings fans and being a coward and that is pretty much it. It is a heel trope that has been done for decades in the wrestling business. MJF really isn’t reinventing the wheel when it comes to his heel work. People gravitate towards him because he is a throwback to the old days when heels got real heat. The thing is MJF’s heel work is pretty juvenile in nature and does not make me want to cheer for the other guy, rather it makes me want to see him off my television. He has go-away heat.
MJF’s heel tactics would bother me if I was twelve years old. That is the major problem with his heel work. It is online troll, edgy pre-teen who just learned about sex and is trying to look cool, nonsense. He doesn’t pose a real threat to the babyface. Take for example KENTA, the best heel in the world. Yes he trolls and taunts the fans, but there is much more to the character that the fans hate on a deeper level. MJF is a one-dimensional caricature. He has no other personality traits, no other motivations other than to be an asshole.
KENTA poses a much larger threat to the fans than just being kind of an asshole. He is an outsider who challenges the fabric of New Japan Pro Wrestling. He does not want to do things the NJPW way. When he walked in the company he said he wanted to show the world KENTA’s pro wrestling. Coming from a failed run in WWE where he was told to walk and talk a certain way, it is understandable that he doesn’t want to conform to New Japan’s way. It is a real character motivation that validates his heelish actions. He’s not likeable, but we can understand why he is that way.
There is no reason why MJF is the way he is. He’s a heel because he needs to be a heel. His actions seem very fake. He doesn’t feel like a real person. It is the laziest way to write a character in any medium. A good heel makes you care about the babyface. They make you want to see the babyface overcome this obstacle that’s blocking them from their goals and accomplishments. Even in a blood feud, the babyface getting their revenge should be satisfying. I don’t see much satisfaction for Cody except for the initial pleasure of beating MJF.
One of the universal criticisms of this feud is how rushed it has been. The majority of fans have either forgotten or simply haven’t cared that the feud is hastily done. It doesn’t change the fact that it is bad. The relationship between MJF and Cody wasn’t established properly for the turn to really mean anything. It was apparent from the beginning that MJF was going to turn on Cody. Nothing they did helped to convince me differently. It was WWE-esque where people are paired together for the sole purpose of splitting them up. They only had a friendship for about six months. Sure in those six months, Cody and MJF fought side by side but it wasn’t enough time to build a tight relationship. The fact is, they never had any real chemistry with each other and with the predictable and impending turn, we were left just waiting for them to fight rather than seeing a bond form and grow strong and then fall apart.
MJF’s reasoning for turning is really stupid. Basically it was “I know the real Cody and the real Cody is a bad person.” It could have been the “I was living in your shadow” excuse or “You were steering me in the wrong direction” or even the classic “I don’t owe any of you an explanation” trope. Instead they chose the dumbest reason. We have no real evidence that Cody was a bad person to MJF. After the title match loss to Jericho, after MJF threw in the towel, Cody was visibly upset but understood MJF and forgave him anyway. MJF cut a promo stating that Cody just wanted to keep him under his thumb but there was never any evidence that Cody abused the mentor-mentee relationship they had. MJF’s turn made absolutely no sense. I went back and saw pretty much every angle leading up to this match. I asked around Twitter and in discords, I read articles trying to find any other sensible explanation to MJF’s actions. The other explanation that I found was that MJF is full of it and that he is lying about the things he said about Cody. That does cover a lot of the unfounded excuses that MJF made because he could just be lying. If that is true then MJF is the dumbest human being on the planet. He still had Cody’s trust! Cody FORGAVE him after he threw in the towel. He could have further used Cody to advance his career. There was no logical reason to turn on Cody. He did it just for the hell of it. Because he is the heel, and heels do heel things, MJF turned on Cody.
The follow up to the turn has been fairly decent. They’re doing an old school, by-the-numbers blood feud build. It has been done many times before and they aren’t doing anything new or interesting with it. The fact that the reasoning behind the turn was so bad and the relationship between MJF and Cody was never as strong as the story suggests is why this feud just doesn’t work.
Cody comes off looking very dumb in this feud. I said before that all of the fans, outside of cannon, knew that the turn was imminent because it was badly written. You can’t blame Cody’s character for that. That is the fault of the writers. What you can blame Cody for is for being so oblivious. People close to him told him repeatedly not to trust MJF. People who had encountered MJF in the past told him not to trust him and that he would betray him. At one point Cody even acknowledged others’ concern with MJF and said he can steer him in the right direction. Cody admitted he knew MJF was a bad person but that he can guide him. And then in an interview with Bleacher Report he says that he did not see it coming. Again, if this was a long and storied friendship and Cody didn’t want to believe that his really great friend would stab him in the back then that would be fine. But since that’s not the case, it makes Cody look really dumb.
My biggest takeaway from this feud is that it feels very fake. The feud doesn’t feel real because the conflict isn’t real. The conflict isn’t real because the relationship was rushed and the motivations were confusing and one of the wrestlers is a one dimensional caricature with no real personality and no real motivations. It feels forced. There wasn’t any natural progression in this feud. Cody cut some great promos that are wasted on such a terrible feud. AEW isn’t all bad. Ever since the break in late December they’ve recovered and put on other interesting feuds. Fake, dumb and rushed feuds like the MJF/Cody feud make me question how this is supposed to be the alternative to WWE when we are getting the same illogical and fake programs that you’d see on Mondays and Fridays.
