Before Adam Cole was the leader of the Undisputed Kingdom, before he teamed up with MJF, and even before he had his first in-ring match against Frankie Kazarian, the leader of the Undisputed Era made his AEW debut at All Out in 2021, where he joined The Elite despite wrestling a match for WWE two weeks earlier at NXT Take Over: 36 in a Best Two out of Three Falls match in Orlando.

At the time, signing Cole felt like an absolute heist for AEW, as the “Panama Playboy” was the top dog in NXT during one of the brand's golden ages, and was often compared to a young Shawn Michaels for his ability to dazzle fans inside and out of the ring as a sympathetic babyface and a cocky heel. And yet, at AEW Double or Nothing 2024, Cole was dropped like a bad habit by MJF, the former AEW World Champion he once shared the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championship with in 2023.

Discussing his relationship with Cole in an interview with Sports Illustrated ahead of his huge return on AEW Dynamite, MJF gave Cole his props before quickly trashing him in the same breath, noting that he was once one of the best wrestlers in the world but now can't hold a candle to “The Devil.”

“In 2019, I can safely say Adam Cole was the best of the best. Point blank, he was the guy, numero uno, with any and all promotions. I can also say, at the end of 2023, he was part of the top quarter-hour of every weekly television until he broke his ankle in two places. That's it. You've got to give him his due. I refuse to say, ‘Give the devil his due.' I'm the devil. He's a cheap knockoff carbon copy, and he's also a p**sy, please put that in writing,” MJF told Sports Illustrated.

“I said it in my interview when I grabbed the stick–it's not my fault everybody in comparison sucks a big ol' bag of donkey d**ks. No one is on my level. No one has ever been on my level. Sometimes I feel like I'm jaywalking because I'm moving so much faster while everyone else adheres to the stop signs and the yields. There is no stopping with me, and that's why I'm lapping everyone in the professional wrestling landscape.”

Honestly, did you really expect a more sincere answer from MJF? Considering how he's handled himself in AEW thus far, even when he was a babyface, it's safe to say no one is safe from MJF's ire now that he's back, and Cole should consider himself lucky that he got a few kind words before being thrashed.

MJF believes that he has the best resume in AEW today.

Elsewhere in his conversation with Sports Illustrated, MJF discussed where he stands in AEW today, noting he has a resume that in unmatched in AEW or anywhere else really.

“The reason that promo resonated with people is because everything that came out of my mouth was fact. It wasn't feelings. It was facts. Can you remember the last time someone became a household name and arenas in WWE were chanting their name when they zero exposure elsewhere? We're talking the Crockett era, aren't we? I take pride in that. AEW is my territory. But I'm a name in every territory because I made professional wrestling my b**ch. MJF made MJF,” MJF declared.

“And you know what's crazy? I'm still evolving. Nobody really knows me 100 percent ever, and nobody ever will. To coin a line from one of the greats, if there's one thing for sure about MJF, nothing's for sure. I almost look at my wrestling matches as a discography of sorts. Somebody might say to you that the match between me and Jungle Boy at Double or Nothing in 2020 is one of the greatest matches they've ever seen. Somebody might say the greatest match they ever saw was MJF versus Darby Allin at Full Gear, or that MJF versus Adam Cole at Wembley Stadium was the greatest spectacle they've ever seen, or MJF in the Iron Man against Bryan Danielson, or MJF in the Four Pillars match, or MJF versus CM in the Dog Collar match, or MJF versus Cody Rhodes. The list goes on and on. What's so interesting about me to toot my own horn–toot toot–is because I'm so good at talking, people genuinely forget how great I am in the ring. Then they see me wrestle and say, ‘Holy s**t, MJF is the best wrestler in the world.' And I don't wrestle too often. That's why, when I wrestle, it's can't-miss.”

Considering that yeah, MJF really doesn't wrestle much in AEW, he really does have a resume that, to paraphrase Sheamus, is filled with banger, after banger, after banger. And the best part? Now that he's back, there's a borderline guarantee of even more greatness to come heading into the future.