Throughout 2026, AEW Men’s World Champion MJF has made a concerted effort to wrestle more on the independent circuit, including defending his championship against Alec Price and Zilla Fatu at Limitless Wrestling and House of Glory, and wrestling non-title matches against Max Caster and Pat Buck. But that may be coming to an end.
During an interview with Undisputed, MJF revealed that his match this weekend against Bobby Orlando for Beyond Wrestling in Cranston, Rhode Island would be the last indie match he’d be wrestling for the foreseeable future, a decision influenced by him briefly losing the AEW Men’s World Title to Darby Allin in April.
“I’m going to announce that this is probably the last American independent match I’m going to have for an extraordinarily long time,” MJF said. “I need to focus on AEW. I took my eyes off the ball for a millisecond, and a dude who is like 145-f*****g-pounds soaking wet beat me. That can’t happen. I don’t care that he hit me in the nuts and spammed his finisher on me four times, and Aubrey Edwards, who is a complete liar, made a fast count. But glass half full, I’m now a three-time champion at the age of 30.”
MJF did up the ante for his last indie rodeo for the time being, declaring he would defend the AEW Men’s World Championship against Orlando. However, that title defense is contingent on the results of Wednesday’s edition of “AEW Dynamite,” where MJF is set to make the first defense of his third World Title reign against former foe Rush. Though MJF defeated Rush in their last meeting two years ago, “El Toro Blanco” is currently on a hot streak, having won seven consecutive matches and nine of his last ten.
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