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I keep seeing people talk about the "villain origin story" as if that saves this promo, but I think the problem is that MJF as a character doesn't work as the type of guy who lets down his defenses and cries about being bullied in high school for being Jewish. And then the whole YOU LEFT ME CM PUNK stuff adds even further lack of believablilty. It all feels so blatant and lacking in any nuance.
If MJF is totally working Punk, you create the scenario of a Jewish guy getting one over on a gullible gentille. If MJF was being totally sincere, you turn MJF into a cocky arrogant heel who will say and do anything to hurt people and pretends he's invulnerable into someone who is very clearly vulnerable and can be taken advantage of. How is that interesting as a bad guy?
I feel like if they wanted to make MJF more interesting and less 1-dimensional, they should have done so in more subtle ways, with in-ring storytelling. Say for instance, they booked a regular match instead of a dumb dog collar match, then you could have a singles bout and the opportunity arises for MJF to cheat to win again. But the past few weeks on Dynamite he's been clowned on for being a cheater and someone who could never legitimately defeat Punk. So he decides to try to beat clean Punk and he winds up losing or winning on his own merits. That does more to tell a story than a lame sob story with endlessly quotable memes (they threw a roll of quarters at me).
