AEW Winter is Coming 2022Preview: MJF vs. Ricky Starks, Elite vs. Death Triangle Part 4

AEW’s Winter is Coming event takes place tonight at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas as All Elite Wrestling’s final major event of 2022. Winter is Coming has become a notorious event on AEW’s annual calendar, usually having some sort of shocking development that carries over into the new year. The first show in 2020 saw Kenny Omega’s heel turn, AEW World Championship win and the announcement that he was heading to Impact Wrestling (as well as Sting’s debut with the company), while last year’s show had Hangman Page and Bryan Danielson compete in a jaw-dropping 60-minute draw for the AEW World Championship. 

This year’s show will feature MJF’s first defense as AEW World Champion when he takes on rising star Ricky Starks. Friedman has already promised his title run will be a “reign of terror,” so this could wind up being one of the few times fans see him defend the gold on television. 

“It’s no secret that this year has been a bit of a up-and-down for me, and I know there’s been some frustrations from my fan base. Things like that, I’m very well aware of,” Starks said in a recent interview with ComicBook. “I’m hopeful that this is the one that we’re turning the corner on. The Eliminator Tournament was a great start. It was a great start to now, where we’re coming into with Winter is Coming, where I actually have a shot at the AEW Championship.”

Starks also spoke about the comparisons MJF threw his way last week about imitating Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — “I always tell this: I don’t hate the comparisons. What I do hate though, is being discredited for my natural creativity in lieu of someone saying, ‘Well, you’re just literally copying The Rock,’ which isn’t true at all.”

“My inspiration and who I am and how I talk and all that, cadence-wise, comes from people in New Orleans,” he clarified. “I can see how there’s a similarity there, but I’m being 100 percent forthcoming and honest when I say I don’t really look to The Rock for my inspiration. I do look to The Rock in terms of what a businessman he is and what he’s contributed and how he holds himself. If some by chance, somebody thinks that I’m Rock-lite, then that’s cool.”