It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles

Ever since All In in London, this past August, Adam Cole and MJF have proven themselves to be a legitimate and dominant tag team in the AEW locker room. The duo known as “Better than You Baybay” captured the Ring Of Honor (ROH) Tag Team Championships during All In: Zero Hour. That same night, the two went on to compete against each other for MJF’s AEW World Championship in the All In main event. MJF and Cole later retained their titles at All Out in Chicago weeks later, establishing even more dominance On both AEW and ROH tag team rosters.

Unfortunately, this surprising bromance was just too good to be true. At the end of September, Adam Cole announced to the world he was leaving due to needing surgery for suffering three torn ligaments. This was devastating for both the team and the fans. While Cole is off the roster, AEW has not vacated the titles. Instead, they’ve kept the titles on the tag team, allowing MJF to defend the titles by himself and with temporary teammates.

While “Better than You Baybay’ is still massively over with the AEW fanbase, Cole has not defended his tag team titles with Friedman for several months now and will not for several more due to injury. AEW has done an impressive job of keeping Cole involved in current storylines. Between the titles with MJF and his rather awkward angle with Roderick Strong, there’s a lot of material to use to keep Cole involved. However, none of it will replace the in-ring title defenses that he is currently unable to do.

If this were WWE, the titles would have been vacated immediately upon Cole’s injury. They have always been cautious with exposing injured talent to the wrestling environment to avoid any further incidents. As we’ve seen with Adam Cole’s Injury, AEW plays by different rules.  While the duo makes for amazing on-screen content, having two top AEW stars hold the ROH titles arguably takes away from the rest of the rosters, let alone with one of them unable to compete for another number of months. It’s not fair to both ROH and AEW tag teams who could make use of the titles and also defend them on a regular basis across both promotions.

Additionally, MJF doesn’t need the ROH tag team titles around his waste right now. He’s in the midst of a historic, record-setting world title reign, facing some of the biggest names this industry has to offer. The tag team titles from ROH are an afterthought when talking about MJF. It currently adds no value to his title run, as Adam Cole isn’t there to complete the team. Certainly, Cole will eventually return. When he does, “Better than You Baybay” reserves the right to challenge again for the titles. Until then, the titles should be vacated, awarding opportunities to other teams with two competing members instead of one.