The Costco Guys: 12 Facts About AJ And Big Justice

Sure, you may know that the Costco Guys used the Rizzler as a battering ram to take down the boss of the New Jersey mafia, but do you know how A.J. came up with the idea for Boom or Doom? Chances are, either you've heard some of those words every day on your social media feeds for months, or they sound like an alien language. Whatever the case may be, there's more to the Costco Guys than their online fame.

For the uninitiated, the Costco Guys are A.J. Befumo and his son Big Justice. Their virality kicked off with a video, following a popular TikTok trend, in which they repeat "we're Costco Guys," followed by some of their favorite Costco activities. Of course A.J. has to work out with the tires. Mentioned first in that groundbreaking video, Costco's Chicken Bake and Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie — technically the Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie, but Costco might as well rename it at this point — became A.J. and Big Justice's calling cards. Since then, their so-called Costco-verse has expanded to include characters ranging from other members of the Befumo family to fellow influencers like the Rizzler and Cousin Angelo. They also made a surprisingly catchy song. For both Costco-verse newbies and fans who want to learn more about their favorite father-and-son retail warehouse influencer duo, here are 12 facts about A.J. and Big Justice that shed some light on who they are when the cameras are no longer running.

While some degree of luck is inevitably part of any influencer's journey to superstardom, A.J. already had years of experience in the entertainment industry before deciding to become a Costco Guy. Specifically, A.J. worked as a professional wrestler — which, even for those who didn't already know, might not come as a surprise given his signature muscly physique.

Eventually settling on the name The American Powerchild Eric Justice, A.J. began wrestling in the '90s and frequented promotions largely based out of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Between the mid-2000s and the first Costco Guys video, he was largely absent from wrestling, save for a 2021 tag team match in New Jersey. His Costco Guys fame ultimately inspired his return to the ring, culminating in an All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view pre-show match against a talent notorious for the deafening boos he often elicits from audiences named Q.T. Marshall. Leading up to his big match, A.J. and Big Justice appeared on-camera during AEW's All Out pay-per-view pre-show and competed in a tag-team match for a Florida-based promotion called Coastal Championship Wrestling. Naturally A.J. did the majority of the in-ring work at CCW, but during a brawl after the match's conclusion, Big Justice hit a spear on opponent Fer Rojas. Their Costco Guys fame, then, very could be the catalyst for Big Justice to give the art form a try himself, following in his father's footsteps.

Ask anyone unfamiliar with the Costco Guys which one is A.J. and which one is Big Justice, and odds are they'll mix up their names. A.J., after all, is the bigger one, and Big Justice maybe even kinda looks like an A.J. It turns out, however, that the name Big Justice isn't a wholesale invention but based on his full legal name, Eric Justice Befumo.

Of course, A.J. came up with the name Eric Justice for his wrestling persona, nicknamed The American Powerchild. When he knew he had a son on the way, he floated Eric Justice at least partially as a joke. For whatever reason, the name stuck. Now that it's his son's legal name, A.J. has committed to no longer wrestling as Eric Justice, and for All Elite Wrestling he's billed as Big Boom! A.J. For what it's worth, the nickname Big Justice came about during a T-ball game. After his son hit a home run, A.J. said, "here comes Big Justice!" and it was a positive reception from the crowd that day that got the nickname to stick.

Soon after the Costco Guys became an internet sensation, the fact that they live in Boca Raton, Florida and not New Jersey — as their overall vibe kinda suggests — became a bit of A Thing on social media. In one particularly notable example, @deadbeatat_dawn on X, formerly known as Twitter, reposted a photo of A.J., Big Justice, and the Rizzler with the caption, "Finding out they are from Florida and not Jersey has absolutely broken me btw." That post amassed more than 70,000 likes and over 600 comments.

First off, the Costco Guys do, in fact, live in Boca Raton, Florida. That said, they moved to Florida from Colts' Neck, New Jersey just a few years before their internet virality. So, they are not, in fact, stealing New Jersey valor. Furthermore, they collaborate regularly with Jersey-based influencers, including not just the Rizzler but names like Jerseyy Joe. So, while they're Jersey guys through and through, it's true that their current home, rather, is in Florida and not the Garden State.

If you've watched even just a minute or two of a Costco Guys video, you've probably heard "Boom!" shouted approximately one to 100 times. A.J. and Big Justice aren't shy about self promotion, and even more so than the Double Chunk Chocolate Cookie or the oftentimes delicious Chicken Bake, "Boom!" is the lifeblood of their brand.

A.J., it turns out, was shouting "Boom!" decades before he filmed himself lifting tires in a Costco. The catchphrase was something the elder Befumo would exclaim as far back as middle school, when he would hit a home run. That continued when A.J. played for his high school football team and would let out a big "Boom!" when he'd sack the opposing quarterback. He even used it in his adulthood when he'd hit a power move on another professional wrestler. Naturally, it stayed in the family after Big Justice entered the picture and started hitting home runs himself. For what it's worth, the term has taken on a new significance post-Costco Guys fame. "The thing is, we learned somewhere along the way what our audience wants, and we give it to them every day. We call it the Boom," A.J. told Tubefilter. "It's happiness, it's laughter, it's positivity, and we call it the Boom. It's really been great. It's been very rewarding."

A.J.'s social media superstardom hardly happened overnight. One of his first ventures in the weird, wide world of internet content was in 2015, when he started posting videos to a YouTube channel called All Befumo'd Up! revolving around his relationships with family members.

One particular video, titled "SUNDAY GRAVY..... ON SATURDAY!" from May of 2015 has retroactively become an important chapter in the Costco Guys story for an extended grocery store sequence featuring A.J. carrying then-toddler Big Justice in a sort of baby backpack. It may not take place at Costco, but it feels like a prototype for their eventual smash-hit retail store-based content all the same. A post by @carobunga on X, formerly known as Twitter containing a clip of that portion of the video with the caption "Costco guy lore" amassed over 48,000 likes, suggesting exponentially higher viewership than the 2,500-or-so views on the original "SUNDAY GRAVY..... ON SATURDAY!" video. All Befumo'd Up! may not have become A.J.'s true calling, but in a broader sense, it's notable for hosting videos of A.J. with his family years before that very format made him famous.

Between the All Befumo'd Up! YouTube channel and becoming a Costco Guy, A.J. not only worked as a mortgage lender but kicked off his TikTok career creating mortgage lending content. Starting in 2022, A.J. began posting videos to a TikTok account with the handle @a.j.befumo – the same account he uses to post Costco Guys videos to this day — in which he provided viewers with sincere mortgage advice. Always savvy about marketing, A.J. branded his channel Mortgage Muscles, seeming to have decided that his pro wrestler physique set him apart from other mortgage lenders.

That said, A.J. occasionally branched out of the financial world altogether, once commenting, for example, on the so-called Swole Groot from "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special." In December of 2022, in another sort of off-brand video — though by this point A.J. had eaten food on his channel a few times already — Big Justice showed up for the first time to introduce a burger called The Big Sloppy at a Florida restaurant called Charm City Burger Company. That video blew up, eclipsing A.J.'s TikTok content without Big Justice, and it was from then on that the father and son became a TikTok team.

About a year and a half elapsed between Big Justice's TikTok debut at Charm City Burger Company and the Costco Guys video that earned A.J. and Big Justice seats on the Mount Olympus of influencers. That wasn't, however, the first time A.J. and Big Justice leveraged a visit to Costco for content.

Prior to their first Costco video, A.J.'s TikTok account had already amassed a respectable follower count of about 13,000. The Befumo matriarch — whose Costco-verse name is the Mother of Big Justice – sparked the fateful first Costco visit when she requested meatballs for a birthday meal. Internet-savvy A.J. decided to record a video at Costco that day tasking viewers with guessing whether or not their total purchase would exceed $350. That video was what set the duo up for virality, quickly amassing over 10 million views and earning A.J.'s TikTok account more than 100,000 followers. It was on their next filmed Costco trip that they decided they were Costco Guys and became inextricably bound to the warehouse chain.

After they officially hit it big, one of the most important features A.J. and Big Justice incorporated into the budding Costco Guys brand became a segment called "Boom or Doom." In some "Boom or Doom" videos, A.J. and Big Justice ask a guest to try a Chicken Bake and a Double Chunk Chocolate Cookie from the secret-filled Costco food court. The guest has to give one a "boom" and the other a "doom." Other times they simply decide whether an item is a "boom" (good) or a "doom" (bad).

In an interview with a wrestling video podcast called I Still Call It A Lariat, A.J. revealed that his inspiration for these "Boom or Doom" segments was an influencer named Reed Parish, who regularly rates food on a scale. "I can't stop watching this guy," A.J. told I Still Call It A Lariat. "I said, 'what's gonna be our equal?' And we had the 'Boom,' so I was like 'Boom or Doom.'" After taking such direct inspiration from Parish, the Costco Guys reached out to him, and they ended up collaborating on a joint video reviewing upscale fast food burger chain BurgerFi — which might not be around much longer.

By all accounts, A.J. and Big Justice becoming full-time Costco Guys is a byproduct of one specific video becoming an unexpectedly mega-viral hit — in other words, a bit of a coincidence. But even if their continued association with the Costco brand wasn't altogether deliberate, it's reasonable to wonder if the iconic Costco chain has ever reached out to the Costco Guys in some capacity. Reporter Ej Dickson asked the Costco Guys outright about their affiliation and published A.J.'s response in a lengthy Rolling Stone profile of the duo. "A.J. declined to specify whether the channel has a financial relationship with the brand, saying only that they are on 'very, very good terms' with Costco," Dickson wrote.

On its surface, it's easy to see from that statement how fans could come to the conclusion that Costco has a sponsorship with the guys. After all, who better than influencers with a massive audience to let prospective new customers know the benefits of shopping at Costco? However, it's perhaps equally likely that the Costco Guys are Costco-branded simply because it's what people want to see from them. A.J.'s refusal to confirm or deny financial sponsorship could be reluctance to admit that they have not actually secured any sort of incentive from the Costco brand. Sponsored or not, if they're on "very, very good terms," then Costco may still vocally appreciate the viral attention, whether or not that's reflected monetarily.

It's hardly controversial to suggest that the Rizzler is the third most important character in the Costco-verse. After all, it wasn't the mother of Big Justice or even A.J.'s daughter Ashley accompanying A.J. and Big Justice on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." But even if the Rizzler, Big Justice, and A.J. pretty uncannily look like three Pokémon from the same evolutionary line, the Rizzler is not actually a member of the Befumo family. Rather, he's a fellow influencer based in New Jersey with whom the Costco Guys simply happen to enjoy collaborating. Before he was a part of the Costco-verse, he was a child with a popular Instagram account co-created by his dad.

Even more bafflingly, the Befumos are unrelated to another frequent Costco-verse character named Cousin Angelo. On TikTok, Cousin Angelo predominately posts Costco Guys-adjacent content, so it's not entirely clear what he did before he landed on the Costco Guys' radar. For the record, then, the Rizzler looks like he could be a member of the family and they literally refer to Cousin Angelo like he's their cousin, but neither is an actual blood relative.

One sort of recurring theme on the Costco Guys' socials is their love of baseball. They attended a 2024 World Series game, for instance, and even recorded a video with members of the viral Savannah Bananas. That's all because Big Justice is an active baseball player. Venturing just outside of the official Costco Guys account, Costco-verse cinematographer Camera Man Kyle even shared a highlight reel of one of Big Justice's baseball games on TikTok. What's notable about this video is that he's on his age group's all-star team in the Boca Raton Little League.

While that at least suggests he's a standout in his local scene, Big Justice even earned a spot at an annual home run derby event for kids from about 10 to 17 called the International Power Showcase. By all appearances, then, Big Justice is pretty genuinely good at the sport. For what it's worth, a YouTube channel called Partychat asked Big Justice how many home runs he could hit off of 10 pitches by famous players. Even if he was kinda joking, Big Justice claimed he could hit three runs against Andrés Galarraga – famously nicknamed Big Cat — so he's pretty confident, at least, in his baseball talents.

On at least one occasion, the positive relationship the Costco Guys keep up with the Costco company went south. For Ej Dickson's Rolling Stone profile, A.J. and Big Justice shared that they were once banned from a Costco in their hometown of Boca Raton, Florida. They theorized that the catalyst was members of Florida's senior citizen community complaining about the fact that they're kinda rowdy. "We make a lot of noise," Big Justice told Rolling Stone. "I'm not gonna say we don't. We're always yelling stuff like 'DOUBLE CHUNK CHOCOLATE,' picking stuff up, throwing it into the cart."

Costco employees have begged customers to stop filming the deli, so this is hardly the first instance of something like this happening. In response, A.J. reached out directly to the Costco corporation. Through their correspondence, the Costco Guys earned the company's blessing to film inside Costco warehouses — even if they're a little loud — under the conditions that they provide advance notice to store managers and ensure that unsuspecting bystanders are left out of their videos. Even a Costco ban, then, couldn't keep the Costco Guys away from their Double Chunk Chocolate Cookies for long.