This weekend at a meet and greet at C2E2 in Chicago - the pop culture convention AEW held their Revolution PPV in conjunction with - a father & his young son paid for a chance to interact with Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

MJF is famously always playing his heel character. Or he’s actually a big dick. Nobody outside the business knows, because he never breaks kayfabe.

You probably see where this is going.

We’re not going to share the video, because one of the things the dad is upset about is that it’s gone viral and his son is being bullied as a result. It’s actually milder than this one from last year. All MJF did to the kid at C2E2 was ignore him and then stick his middle finger in his face while they were having their picture taken.

Parents, watch your kids or @The_MJF will straight 'em up. pic.twitter.com/tLxY5pk2cw — The OP Lance Romance (@LanceVision) May 27, 2019

In a series of protected tweets which tagged AEW Executive Vice-Presidents Cody Rhodes and Matt Jackson, the father relayed the incident and asked that MJF tone it down around children.

“My son & I are big fans of #AEW we order #AEWRevolution & my little guy was all excited to go to #C2E2 the very next day to see some of the wrestlers the first we saw was MJF [who isn’t tagged], you may have seen the pic &/or video going around that is me & my son that when he flips him off, I tried to laugh it off knowing he’s just in character & Joey Janela [who was tagged] was great helping to calm my son down but it really upset him I know that’s his gimmick but he’s only 7 & doesn’t understand, his eyes would tear up & he didn’t. too far flipping him off now there’s a video & people making memes to make fun & I don’t like that as a parent I hope you guys can understand & tell him to calm his antics down in front of kids, I’m in the process of trying to take these videos down since they were taken without our knowledge & I hope better judgment is made in the future.”

Cody’s initial reply was to back the talent:

“DISCLAIMER: If you have a meet/greet or inquire media wise for MJF, you’ll get MJF. Talent have freedom of expression so please don’t think anybody is going to act any different than they do on TV.”

Hey Tom. Just give me your name and city and we will have some will-call tickets for the next time we are in your neighborhood, plus I’ll personally come by and say hello during the show. — Cody (@CodyRhodes) March 4, 2020

Actually, no. This was a paid meet/greet where you specifically chose the individual. We would never send MJF on a free publicity activation for this very reason, he’s immature and doesn’t represent the brand. — Cody (@CodyRhodes) March 4, 2020

Perfect! We have some return dates soon, just remind me when we get close. Sorry about the situation. — Cody (@CodyRhodes) March 4, 2020

TMZ picked up the story, and they reached out to MJF for comment. He wasn’t terribly interested in PR. He quoted a meme for his official statement to the site: “f*** them kids“. The he retweeted their story with some advice, presumably for the father and son:

There aren’t many real heels in wrestling any more, folks. Good thing one of the last of them has someone with good customer service skills watching his back.