MJF Bets on Himself and Top Takeaways From AEW Double or Nothing 2024 Results

AEW kicked off year five with an explosive Double or Nothing pay-per-view that saw new champions crowned, rivalries completed, and the return of one of the most important stars in company history.

MJF stunned the wrestling world by returning, laying out Adam Cole, and revealing that he has re-signed with AEW.

Dive deeper into his return and relive other moments, stars, and booking decisions with this recap, told through the biggest takeaways from the broadcast.

Double or Nothing kicked off with the AEW International Championship match and it became clear immediately upon his arrival that Will Ospreay is the most electrifying star in the company.

And it isn’t close.

From his entrance amid It Lives, It Breathe’s “Elevated” to the aggression and intensity that he approaches his in-ring work, Ospreay understands aura and uses it to enhance every aspect of his performance.

It was on full display Sunday night as he battled Roderick Strong and even took time to wipe out The Undisputed Kingdom’s Matt Taven and Mike Bennett en route to winning his first title under the AEW banner.

The crowd’s response to him further enhances his overall presentation, announcing to anyone tuning into the product casually or for the first time that the “Billy Goat” is a legitimate star.

The Buy-In Show announcement that the winner of this year’s Owen Hart Memorial Cup Tournament will receive a world title shot at All In at Wembley Stadium puts the spotlight solely on The Aerial Assassin, who immediately becomes the favorite to win if he is entered and challenge for the top prize in the company in front of his hometown fans.

Ospreay arrived at a time when AEW desperately needed him and to this point, has been a red-hot addition to a product that has frequently felt as cold as ever, making him more valuable and accentuating his undeniable electricity.

MJF returned to AEW Sunday night, paying homage to Triple H with a jean and leather jacket combo straight out of 2002 that only the King of Kings could love, interrupting a scathing Adam Cole promo and driving his former friend to the mat with a brainbuster.

The Salt of the Earth cut a promo that announced his return to the company, revealed that he would be betting on himself, and denounced the idea that we would see the fun-loving nonsense that defined him at the end of 2023.

As usual, he brought the controversy, telling the locker room, “I don’t need a New Japan or a Vince McMahon to make MJF because MJF made MJF!”

It was a killer line delivered as only the best mic man in AEW can exclaim it: loudly and with conviction.

The mood changed when the former world champion stepped through the curtain and confronted Cole. Suddenly, there was another engaging star fans could get behind; someone they could get excited for and invest themselves in.

At a time when the creative is as underwhelming as it has been in the company’s first five years, when Ospreay is carrying the hopes and dreams of fans for a return to form for AEW, The Devil has returned and with it, brings hope.

He bet on himself, pledging his allegiance to the company he has worked to establish himself in as one of its faces, and as he goes, so will AEW.

He is the face of the company, despite every attempt to hitch the wagon to stars created outside of AEW, and if the promotion is to reach the heights originally dreamed of by Tony Khan and the EVPs, he will be the man to lead it.

First things first: “Timeless” Toni Storm and “The Professor” Serena Deeb had a strong match for the AEW Women’s Championship. That should not be particularly surprising to anyone who has paid attention to either woman’s career, including the current over-the-top nature of Storm’s on-screen persona.

Both are talented in-ring competitors, something AEW has in abundance across its roster.

Unfortunately, when you have that many good-to-great wrestlers on the roster, there has to be more to it than simply sending them to the squared circle to have a good match. Strong booking and great storylines set each act apart and right now, that is not something afforded to the women’s division.

Case in point, Storm and Deeb’s clash.

The lack of on-screen development of Deeb’s character hurt her connection with fans while the presentation of Storm as a heel one week and a babyface the next meant she never had the opportunity to establish herself in any one role.

The result is a match between two great wrestlers with no discernable story and as a result, no real heat to speak of.

Storm has been extraordinary since adopting the “Timeless” storyline but the booking of her in an oftentimes undefined role, against under-developed opponents, has done no one any favors. That has ultimately hurt the overall quality of the division, despite a roster full of quality wrestlers and potential breakout stars.

Until that changes, it is a pattern that will continue and hamper any desire to develop and evolve the women’s division in AEW.

With a win Sunday night in his IWGP World Championship Eliminator Match against Jon Moxley, Konosuke Takeshita would have ensured himself a shot at the most coveted prize in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

Driven by his desire to prove himself and win championship gold in the process, he shined, thanks to in-ring dominance we had not seen from him in his pay-per-view appearances to date. He ruthlessly attacked Moxley’s arm, the same arm he broke 24 hours before at Collision.

Takeshita absorbed everything Moxley threw at him, answered, and nearly put the IWGP champion away more than once. Instead, he introduced a steel chair that a battered and beaten Moxley used against him and proceeded to lose following the Death Rider.

Despite the loss, Takeshita took the next step in his evolution, introducing intensity and aggression previously lacking from his performance, proving he could combat Moxley’s pitbull-like tenacity.

Even though Takeshita still managed to shine, it does not completely excuse the defeat.

Who knows what the agreement between AEW and NJPW calls for politically speaking, but if there was ever an opportunity for Takeshita to have a shot at Moxley’s title, the time to set that contest up was Sunday.

Takeshita spent the match picking Moxley apart, targeting his injured limb, and driving him to the brink of defeat.

The champion, doing his best to replicate the John Cena/Superman-esque booking of the 2010s, overcame the odds and put him away after a combo of moves assisted by a conveniently placed steel chair. Booking that likely would have been met with heavy criticism in a different era.

The match was quite good and showcased Takeshita, but would have meant considerably more had he been able to secure the trademark victory that continues to elude the young breakout star.

The best-built storyline entering Sunday’s show was that of Adam Copeland and The House of Black.

Driven to the depths of despair by the mind games of Malakai Black, Brody King, and Buddy Matthews, The Rated R Superstar vowed revenge and damnation for the heels and he subsequently delivered one by one.

First, he brutalized Matthews. Then, he bloodied King. Sunday, he violently and vengefully battered Black inside a barbed wire steel cage. He absorbed a beating but put his own body on the line to punish his transgressor and did just that, delivering an elbow drop from the top of the cage that nearly blew out his knees to drive Black through a table.

The match had already exceeded expectations by that point but it was the late arrival of Murphy and King, a teased alliance with Copeland, and a betrayal that set up a finish that elevated it exponentially.

Facing a three-on-one assault, Copeland benefited from the arrival of former friend and rival, Gangrel, who laid out two of the three heels, leaving the Hall of Famer to dispatch of Black for the win.

In a company that openly throws around “wrestling,” this was incredibly fun sports entertainment. From the story-driven in-ring action to the teased turn and arrival of wrestling’s greatest vampire, this was pure sports entertainment, executed by two men familiar with it dating back to their time in WWE.

On a card full of matches seemingly compiled to appeal to one portion of the fan base, this separated itself from the rest of the lineup and succeeded as a result.

Mercedes Moné defeated Willow Nightingale to win the TBS Championship in a fantastic match Sunday night that had previously been billed as one-third of a triple main event.

Of those three matches, it went on first, a decision that understandably left some questioning the logic behind it given the heat and backstory behind the contest.

From Moné’s monumental debut with the company, Nightingale’s emotional TBS title victory at AEW Dynasty, and the Strong Women’s Championship Match that saw the latter defeat the hobbled CEO in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, there was so much to pull from and the fans knew it.

They treated the match like the main event and the combatants like two of the biggest stars on the card.

That the match lived up to the hype, with each woman attempting to injure the other’s ankles, a throwback to the ankle injury suffered by Moné in their first encounter; an injury that cost her the opportunity to make history as the first Strong champion. Ultimately, Moné downed Nightingale and scored the clean win.

The opportunity existed to make history with the first women’s pay-per-view main event in AEW history, not to mention the first between two black women.

Instead, the company opted to take the hottest match on the card and place it third from the top in favor of a mostly cold AEW world title feud between Swerve Strickland (a problem in its own right) and the absurd Anarchy in the Arena between The Elite and Team AEW that easily could have existed literally anywhere else on the card and still left an impact.

It was a short-sighted booking decision, the likes of which occur a little too frequently at times, and a massive missed opportunity to announce to the world a new day in women’s wrestling in AEW.

Instead, a good match was had and Kris Statlander’s shocking betrayal of Nightingale after the match set them up for a potentially high-profile feud.

Just not in the main event.

Not when there are greater priorities, like gimmicky brawls the likes of which we have seen countless times in the company’s five years.

If you still dig The Young Bucks like it’s 2018, and love wild and chaotic brawls that a little too contrived for most, you probably loved the main event of Sunday’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view.

The Elite’s Matthew and Nicholas Jackson, Jack Perry, and Kazuchika Okada defeated Team AEW’s Darby Allin, FTR, and Bryan Danielson in a match that featured vehicular assault, Allin engulfing Perry in fire with his trusty flamethrower, and an exploding steel chair.

All of that gave way to Allin being hung from the rafters and Perry wiping out Danielson with a running knee to score the win for the EVPs and their Elite besties.

The match was all over the place, an arena brawl that would have been better suited for the middle of the card. There was little accomplished by any of it, with the rivals mostly punching and kicking their way to set up the next spot.

The crowd ate it up, and we did get an appearance from Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” but the match itself was another example of the garbage brawls that have been overdone for too long.

While not similar, this marked the third consecutive pay-per-view event in which the Bucks appeared in a match with heavy gimmick stipulations. The first was Sting’s retirement match at Revolution that descended into a no disqualification bout. The second was last month’s Ladder Match for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Sunday saw No. 3 unfold before the AEW fans.

With a pay-per-view that featured 12 matches including the Buy-In preshow, and a main event hitting the ring at midnight, Double or Nothing proved to be another excessive show from a company that has yet to discover the sweet spot in terms of the number of matches to present on a PPV.

A main event that potentially overwhelms the senses with its absurd amount of brawling, weapon use, and chicanery does not help matters.

Looking forward, The Elite has firmly established itself at the top of the company as the most dominant faction in AEW. What happens next, who stands up to combat them, and whether it is Hangman Page, remains to be seen.

What does not is that the Young Bucks, Perry, and Okada are the tops in AEW.