MJF Addresses Injuries That Kept Him Away From AEW: 'Most Pain I've Ever Been In'

AEW/Lee South

The end of 2023 was a dark time for MJF. He was betrayed by his best friend Adam Cole, he lost the AEW World Championship to Samoa Joe, and he was so injured that the payoff to the highly-anticipated "Bidding War of 2024" never came to be, as he needed time away from wrestling to heal his injuries. A lot of those injuries came during the main event of Full Gear 2023 in Los Angeles against Jay White, a match that MJF broke down during his recent appearance on "Casual Conversations with The Classic."

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"In the Jay White match, I beat him on one leg by the way, no big deal. I hit an elbow drop from the top rope to the floor because I was trying to impress people that I thought cared about me, later on I found out they didn't, and my hip popped out of socket." MJF explained that he kept fighting through the pain in order to please the fans, which he has since regretted. However, the injuries just kept mounting from there. "He hit me with a Uranage off the top rope, and I landed directly on my left shoulder and my labrum just snapped entirely in half."

With the left side of his body in tatters, MJF finished the match and retained his AEW World Championship in the process. Once he got backstage, something happened to MJF that had never happened before. "I was just crying, like I've literally not cried like that in my entire life. I was just balling my f**king eyes out because the adrenaline dump wore off ... it was the most pain I've ever been in in my entire life."

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Please credit "Casual Conversations with The Classic" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.