According to a new report, MJF has a torn labrum after a nasty bump at Full Gear.
The main event of Full Gear saw Maxwell Jacob Friedman once again defend his AEW World Championship against Jay White. After suffering an attack from The Gunns earlier in the night, Friedman’s storyline injury put the main event match in doubt, but he made a triumphant return just before the match was set to begin.
Despite retaining his championship against White, MJF left the bout with injuries that were unfortunately not part of a planned storyline. Not only did dislocate his hip when delivering an elbow drop onto White after the announce table broke in advance, he also hurt his shoulder in the match.
Dave Meltzer reported on November 27th that Friedman has a torn labrum and noted that he is still expected to work his planned match with Samoa Joe at AEW Worlds End on December 30th.
MJF has a torn labrum. He will work with Samoa Joe on the next PPV, but obviously that's a huge blow.
— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) November 27, 2023
Fightful Select shed more light on the situation, noting that while Friedman’s hip injury took place during the elbow drop onto Jay White, the torn labrum occurred during a top rope uranage spot.
Will MJF Need Surgery For His Torn Labrum?
Now, writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Meltzer provided an update on both the hip and labrum injuries, noting that MJF will not be undergoing surgery and will instead focus on rehab and stem cell therapy for his shoulder. He wrote:
“We’re told the hip swelling is down but the pain is still pretty much the same.
The shoulder injury came from the uranage off the top rope spot by White. He had come in with an injured shoulder. He won’t be getting surgery and is going to be working on stem cell therapy and rehab to get ready. Surgery would have put him out for a couple of months. Whether he will do a match between now and then is not known, but he believes he can do careful matches or smoke & mirror matches prior to the PPV.
Talent in wrestling working on torn labrums is not unusual, and he’s done it before. He suffered a torn labrum prior to his May 23, 2020, Double or Nothing PPV match with Jungle Boy and ended up with a breakthrough performance for both of them at the time. Although this tear is said to be worse than the 2020 tear.”
MJF pulled double duty at Full Gear. In addition to competing against Jay White in the main event, he teamed with Samoa Joe to defend the ROH Tag Team Championships on the Buy-In show. Joe agreed to step in for an injured Adam Cole in the bout on the condition that if their team was victorious, he would receive a shot at the AEW World Championship in the future.