AEW boss Tony Khan thrilled to bring MJF home to Nassau Coliseum as promotion's top star
AEW chief executive Tony Khan (left) is ready to see Long Island's MJF make his mark on Nassau Coliseum's wrestling legacy. Credit: AEW
How do you thank Long Island for producing the biggest star in your wrestling company? If you’re All Elite Wrestling CEO Tony Khan, you bring him to town to headline a brand new pay per view event.
AEW's Worlds End event comes to Nassau Coliseum on Dec. 30, with Plainview’s own Maxwell Jacob Friedman defending his AEW world heavyweight title in the main event against Samoa Joe.
It’s AEW’s debut in the Uniondale arena that has hosted many a classic wrestling event, including a pair that stuck out in Khan’s mind: Jim Crockett Promotions’ Bunkhouse Stampede pay per view in 1988, and one-third of WrestleMania 2 in 1986.
“It’s been home to a lot of great events, and I’m excited that AEW Worlds End will be the newest wrestling event in this iconic wrestling venue, the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island,” Khan said in a recent interview.
Although Friedman has performed in front of some big Long Island crowds before—including when Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino presented him with the "Key to Long Island" at UBS Arena in April—this will be a different MJF than the one they last saw here. Once reviled as one of wrestling’s most despicable villains, MJF is now one of the company’s most popular heroes.
“Fans started seeing MJF in a totally different way,” said Khan, who traced Friedman’s attitude change to when he formed an unlikely alliance with Adam Cole. “They became the hottest act in AEW . . . They sold more merchandise in a couple months than anybody else had in the entire year.”
MJF’s successful transformation from sinister rule-breaker into a beloved babyface is just another way the 27-year-old Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School graduate has silenced critics, and impressed his boss.
“I think in baseball, they would call him a five-tool player. And, in basketball, offensively, there’s the triple threat — dribble, pass and shoot,” Khan said of MJF. “In this case, I think he has all the skills. He’s got the wrestling ability. He’s got a blend of strength and agility and technical wrestling talent. He can have good matches with a wide variety of opponents. He’s somebody that fans want to see in big main event matches. He’s got unbelievable charisma. And he has a very entertaining manner of speaking and captivates audiences when he talks, and when he wrestles, which is the most you can hope for of any wrestler.”
Friedman is also poised to make his feature film debut later this month in “The Iron Claw.” And he’s emerged as an important voice in the fight against antisemitism, including as a spokesman for New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft’s Stand Up to Jewish Hate campaign.
“I introduced MJF to Robert Kraft . . . And I told him, I thought MJF would be a great spokesperson for him. And Mr. Kraft and Max met, and they had a great meeting and Mr. Kraft raved to me and to my father about what a tremendous person MJF is and how impressed the Patriots organization was with him when he came and visited them,” Khan said. “And he's been a huge part of their mission to stand up to Jewish hate.”
In a video released by AEW of MJF’s meeting with Kraft at Gillette Stadium, the AEW champ said he loves pro wrestling “because it gives me an outlet, for a little kid watching at home to feel like they can be a superhero and they can stand up to antisemitism . . . It is something that is in the underbelly of our society and something that needs to be talked about more.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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