After a hard-fought victory on AEW Dynamite, a Jungle Boy heel turn could be on the horizon for the young star.
With his victory over Rush on Wednesday, the seeds have been planted for his first heel run in the company.
This follows the feud with Christian Cage, where the former World Heavyweight Champion tried to convince him to turn to the dark side, with little success.
However, the current Four Pillars storyline has shown the deficiencies in his character, something that MJF has pounced on to get one over on his opponents.
The story has shown how MJF is getting in the three men’s heads, convincing them they need to change who they are in order to beat them.
Like Max, Jungle Boy Jack perry would be further along in his career if he was willing to cheat and take shortcuts.
On Wednesday, we saw him find himself struggling in his match, because he was up against a serial cheater and corner cutter (Rush).
So, Jack did what Max would have done, and he used the tights and stole the victory when the opportunity presented itself.
Ultimately, Jack is likely going to realize that that isn’t who he is, but it’s clear they are trying to show us that MJF has managed to get into Jungle Boy’s head.
This is building off his last story with Christian Cage, where he managed to drag Jack down to his level. A jungle boy becomes a jungle man through trial and tribulation.
The entire four pillars storyline is set up like this. Sammy is acting more like a babyface all of a sudden, when that clearly doesn’t suit him.
Meanwhile, the usual loner Darby Allin (aside from his partnership with Sting) is going out of his way to help others (he teamed with Orange Cassidy this week). This is all going to feed into the main event and be the reason why MJF wins — he truly knows who he is, the others are still working it out.
MJF will use his certainty that he is a liar and a cheat to beat the others, while the other three men go out of the way to be someone they are not.
However, this could also lead to Jungle Boy embracing his dark side, maybe even joining MJF for a spell, learning from the AEW Champion on how to get to the top, through nefarious means.
This could see the debut of a new character for Jungle Boy, embracing the legacy of his father – the famous Hollywood actor Luke Perry.
Even though Luke Perry is deceased (As Christian Cage loved to mention), Jungle Boy could take inspiration from his Hollywood background with a new heel character.
He could also take cues from The Rock’s famous heel turn in 2003, where his Hollywood Rock gimmick became one of the best gimmicks of all time.
A Jungle Boy heel turn to change him into “Hollywood” Jack Perry would do wonders for the young star, and put him back on course for singles gold in AEW.