#hangjf

But mjf? He's too emotional. Too heart on his sleeve. He fell in love with a boy and because it didn't fall under the guise of a blood feud, it repelled them.

But he won, and he kept the belt, and he beat Hangman in a Texas Deathmatch, and he fucked Hangman up after the Ls last year, and he's still champion \o/ And it was kind of Hangman's fault - not only did he want a TDM, and maybe fix the odds a little to get it, but he's won a lot of those matches, and never by using dog collars. He specifically used the dog collars to upset Max - because he was trying to hurt Max, not just win the match (maybe he thought that was a given). But he either didn't consider or overlooked the fact that Max has more experience in dog collar matches than him - has Hangman been in a single dog collar match? Max has been in 3 total, 1 just in AEW. Max knew how to use dog collars better than Hangman, knew the pitfalls of them, and that worked out badly for Hangman. And also because Hangman got distracted - after all the calling for the crowd's support in recent matches, he spent time playing to them rather than keeping an eye on Max, and it gave Max all the opportunity he needed. And it was a little similar to Max at World's End 2023, when he lost his world title - lots of little mistakes because he was playing to the crowd, trying to be The Face, rather than keeping his eye on his match and his opponent. Maybe in that moment, Max saw his old self in Hangman - or his desire for the audience's approval. And either hatred for that way of thinking was good motivation for him, or having come up with a way to function while denying that part of himself meant he could see the moment for what it was, in a fight rather than anything to do with the audience's approval, and take advantage. Or both.

And the callback to the Dog Collar Match was amazing, anyway. It's hard for me because I don't really want to think about CM Punk or CMJF anymore, or act like it's the most important thing about Max's character - but it was a huge moment in his career and his character, and it's good to acknowledge that as part of him rather than act like it never happened. It makes sense to acknowledge it as part of his character. To be honest - I see 'callbacks' a lot probably just because I'm trying to see them, but there have been a lot of little moments in the MJF-Hangman feud for the last year or so that have made me think about Max and Punk or Hangman and Punk. Things that might have been deliberate references. The dog collars was a big one last night, but so was 'pissing on your enemy's grave', and there've been quite a few others although they don't come to mind right now. And I think it's nice if Max and Hangman can now sort of acknowledge/deal with/process some of that stuff even though Punk left, so they can't do it directly. Maybe they can exorcise some of those demons rather than leaving it as a big gaping hole, and move on to developing their characters past that.

But anyway, mostly I'm just happy Max won and is still champ, and still has some reason to maybe interact with Joe again, and - honestly I have struggled with the writing when it comes to Hangman for months now, so I'm genuinely interested in where he might go now. Whether he sticks to the stipulation or not. If he'd won it would have felt a lot like More Of The Same to me. And it'd be nice for him and Max to have some space from each other, after all the time they've now spent feuding. Now they have a good reason to - and a good reason to feud again, and take things very personally with each other, eventually. Or maybe even to make up one day. See eye-to-eye a little, at least.