Welcome back, friends! So you have decided to watch AEW Full Gear. If you were with us for the Double or Nothing viewing, then you are starting to be familiar with the promotion and its wrestlers. And yet, if you have not kept up with the weekly show since then, you might find that a lot has changed since Labour Day, and this is where this preview comes in!
It's also possible that you haven't watched a wrestling show with us since Wrestlemania 36, in which case you might notice that this isn't even the same wrestling company. And yet, the landscape of the industry has changed so much in the last six months that you might see some familiar faces anyway. So if you need to catch up with the new characters, this is also for you!
Or, you know, maybe it's your first time watching wrestling with us. If so, then I'm glad you chose to take this big step in the wonderful world of professional wrestling! AEW Full Gear is a great place to start, with a card that features all kinds of matches and styles, from Lucha Libre to Street Fights and storyline-heavy matches. And just in case you feel like catching up to the stories before hand, this preview will tell you everything you need to know!
Still, please be assured that you can watch the show and enjoy good wrestling without the need to know the intricacies of everyone's previous relationships. That's how it used to be before the internet. But thank you for visiting this page anyway!
(All pictures courtesy of AEW's Youtube channel)
AEW Men's World Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs "Hangman" Adam Page
The Background: Kenny Omega is an obnoxious dude from Winnipeg who spent most of his adult life in Japan, enjoying a successful career as a professional wrestler over there. He is the leader of "The Elite", a faction in which every member somehow manages to be more arrogant than the last. Omega also happens to be extremely talented, alternately being known as "The Cleaner" because he literally beat everyone in his division, as well as "The Best Bout Machine" because of his incredible skills when it comes to putting on a good show.
"Hangman" Adam Page is a self-described "Anxious Millennial Cowboy", a young man from Virginia who enjoys a drink every once in a while, but who uses it to hide his insecurities regarding his talented friends and colleagues. He also hangs out with the Dark Order without being a full on member, a group of goofy spooky-themed wrestlers who are actually just cool people looking for new friends.
The Match: Omega and Page used to be best friends, to the point where they were once Tag Team Champions together. They split after losing the championship, with Omega blaming his partner's anxiety and insecurities for the loss. They then met at last year's edition of Full Gear in the final of a tournament to name the #1 contender to the World Championship, a match won by Omega, who then ended up winning his subsequent championship match against Jon Moxley. He has held the title ever since, and has been using it to make everyone miserable.
Hangman, feeling like he was not strong enough to defeat Omega, was nevertheless convinced to confront Omega and The Elite by The Dark Order. The two groups fought in a 5 vs 5 tag team match, with the stipulation the Hangman could get a match for Omega's championship should his group win. They did not, and Hangman blamed himself once again. Taking his distance from his friends, he took a hiatus from the company, instead spending a few months with his wife and his newborn child.
He finally made his comeback a month and a half ago, winning a Ladder Match for the right to face Kenny Omega for the World Championship at Full Gear. Sporting a brand new attitude, Hangman Page is now more confident than he has ever been, reinvigorated by the love of his friends and family. This confidence has shaken Omega's grasp on the title, and the champion has been acting erratically ever since, lashing out at The Elite, scolding them for not doing more to protect him.
A year after their previous encounter, it is now time for Omega to face the Hangman, with the sport's most precious belt on the line!
AEW Women's World Championship: Dr. Britt Baker, DMD (c) vs Tay Conti
The Background: Dr. Britt Baker, DMD (the letters are very important) is an actual licensed dentist with a practice in Pittsburgh, who also happens to be one of the best wrestlers in the world on her off days. She uses her knowledge of the human mouth when applying her finishing manoeuvre, the Lockjaw, where she shoves her hand in her opponent's mouth to put pressure on the nerves underneath the tongue. Being a dentist AND a wrestler, she has enough money to hire protection, so she never leaves the house without her assistant Rebel (not Reba (Baker doesn't actually care enough to learn her assistant's name)) and her bodyguard Jamie Hayter, who is a British wrestler built like "a brick shithouse" (or so they say).
Tay Conti is a Brazilian wrestler with a black belt in Judo and a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She almost represented her country at the 2016 Olympics, but finished 2nd in the qualifications. She turned to professional wrestling in 2017, which makes her a relative newcomer, but she has improved tremendously in the past year, accumulating wins to the point of becoming first in the rankings, which makes her the automatic #1 contender for the World Championship.
The Match: As previously stated, Tay's win-loss record made her #1 in her division, thus giving her an automatic shot at the champion. Britt Baker, sensing that maybe her underhanded tactics would not be enough to keep up with a legit judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion, started attacking Tay Conti's best friend and roommate Anna Jay in the past few weeks. This culminated in a 3 on 1 attack on a previous edition of AEW's weekly Wednesday Night TV show, where Conti had to save her friend with a steel chair to equalize the situation. Baker hoped to get into Conti's head by making her angry and getting her off her game this way. Did it work? We'll find out at Full Gear, when Conti finally gets a chance to see if her progresses over the last year made her good enough to be a champion.
AEW World Tag Team Championship: Lucha Brothers (w/ Alex Abrahantes) (c) vs FTR (w/ Tully Blanchard)
The Background: The Lucha Brothers are Rey Fénix, the world's fastest and most agile wrestler, and Penta El Zero Miedo, a violent man who loves dressing up as a ninja skeleton because it's intimidating as hell. Seriously, they are possibly the best tag team of the past ten years, if not more than that. They also happen to be 2/3 of a group known as "Death Triangle" with "The Bastard" PAC (yes, it's all caps), a Gollum-looking British man who might be the only person alive who can match the Lucha Bros' speed and agility. They won the Tag Team Championship from The Young Bucks at the last Pay Per View event, and although they have defended the belts a few times on TV, this is their first real test.
FTR is composed of Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, two tag team experts who have been teaming for years previously as "The Revival" in WWE. What does "FTR" stand for? Well, it started as a Twitter hashtag from their opponents years ago and it stood for "Fuck The Revival", but then it evolved to "Fear The Revival", then "Fear The Revolution" for copyrights reasons, until we are now at a point where the meaning changes every time we talk about it. FTR are also members of a faction known as "The Pinnacle", a group of men hired by a rich prick called MJF (more about him later) to watch his back.
The Match: FTR loves old school wrestling and hates flashy moves, hence their motto "No flips, just fists" (hehehe). The Lucha Bros. are of course all about flips, so this was a natural rivalry that has been simmering for a while.
Meanwhile, the Lucha Bros., who were double champions at the time (they also held the AAA Tag Team Championship in Mexico), had been dealing with Andrade El Idolo, a fellow Mexican who has been trying to poach them from PAC, saying that they should have solidarity as countrymen and ditch the miserable British orc. The brothers said "no thanks", but Andrade is the kind of guy to hold a grudge. He said that if they wouldn't join him, he would find a different team of masked luchadors to fight them and avenge him. This turned out to be a team called "Super Ranas", who were quickly unmasked to reveal... FTR in elaborate costumes. Indeed, Andrade had paid a commision to FTR's boss MJF to use them as hired goons for the match. Nevertheless, FTR cheated to beat the Lucha Bros. and steal the AAA Tag Team Championship.
And now, at Full Gear, the teams meet again, this time for the AEW Tag Team Championship, with the Lucha Bros. looking to avenge their previous humiliation, while FTR hopes to become double champions to show that they are better than their rivals.
World Title Eliminator Final (Winner receives a shot at the AEW Men's World Championship): Bryan Danielson vs Miro
The Background: Bryan Danielson used to be known as Daniel Bryan in WWE, where he spent the last decade being the most popular wrestler on their roster. Following a four years retirement due to neck issues, he rehabbed and returned to the ring two years ago. The WWE he came back to was not the one he had left behind, and thus, with his contract expiring soon, he left to take his chances in AEW. He started with the company in September and has not lost a match since, instead finding a mean streak that he had been hiding all along, and taking back his early career moniker of "The American Dragon". He is a wrestling genius with a deep knowledge of the sport's many holds and manoeuvres, and a seemingly endless tank when it comes to stamina.
Miro is a big, violent Bulgarian man who is alternately known as "The Redeemer" and "God's Favorite Champion". He loves to brag about his muscles, his skills, and his "hot, double-jointed wife" (his words, not mine). He was the company's TNT Champion (the company's secondary championship) for four months, until losing it to Sammy Guevara, which sent him into a downward spiral. Feeling abandoned by his God and humiliated at the loss, he decided he would not show his face home again until he became victorious once more.
The Match: This is the final of a tournament to determine the next challenger to the winner of the main event between Kenny Omega and Hangman Page. Danielson had a tough road, beating veterans Dustin Rhodes and Eddie Kingston to win his place. As for Miro, he is subbing for Jon Moxley, who had to forfeit the tournament after voluntarily checking into rehab. Therefore, Miro only had to beat Orange Cassidy, which he did decisively, to get to the finals. The two met before in a previous life in WWE, but it is their first encounter since they both got their groove back. Miro is about twice as big as Danielson, but is more of a brawler. Danielson might be smaller, but he is more technical.
Power vs skills, WHO WILL WIN?
CM Punk vs Eddie Kingston
The Background: CM Punk is a wrestling icon, a man who started a revolution twice in the sport, using only a microphone as his weapon. Sure, he is a talented wrestler, calling himself "The Best In The World", but his strength is in his charisma (which he used to be a cult leader in WWE) and his talking abilities, which mesmerizes crowds and undercuts opponents before they even step into the ring. He was retired from 2014 to 2021, having lost his passion for wrestling after a bad stint in WWE. He is now back, older and wiser, and he's been trying to act nice. The problem is, the smugness is never far, and the happy-go-lucky facade is starting to crack.
Eddie Kingston is a journeyman wrestler also known as "The Mad King", who spent 19 years on the independent scene before finding a job in AEW. He is possibly the only man who is as charismatic as CM Punk on the microphone, but with a different style. While Punk is calm and collected, Kingston is loud and abrasive, speaking in the most New York accent you can imagine. He's been sort of a locker room leader in the company, mentoring and helping various wrestlers for the past year and a half, but it's never clear if he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart, or if he's manipulating them to get ahead.
The Match: CM Punk and Eddie Kingston have crossed path many times in their careers, with Punk usually being the more well known name while Kingston toiled away in the shadow. However, Kingston arrived first in AEW, making himself a household name for the first time in his career. When Punk arrived in September 2021, they mostly played nice, but this all came crashing down in October.
After losing his tournament match to Bryan Danielson, an irate Eddie Kingston barged backstage, cussing and swearing. Punk happened to be giving an interview nearby, and didn't appreciate Kingston interrupting him. Now Punk might be a good guy, but he is also extremely smarmy and arrogant, so he asked for an apology from the already angry Kingston. This went about as well as one could expect: Kingston accused Punk of disrespecting him first, of having looked down on him his whole career, and of having turned him away when he needed help. Punk replied, saying that he did not disrespect Kingston; in fact, he claims that he saw potential in Kingston, and that it's Eddie who let Punk down by being so lazy and unfocused. A brawl ensued, and after being separated by officials, the two agreed to meet at Full Gear.
If you have a few minutes, you can watch the incredible segment where the two wrestlers confronted each other here.
Street Fight: The Inner Circle vs Men of the Year & American Top Team
The Background: The Inner Circle is named as such because it is a group lead by Chris Jericho and populated with his best friends: Sammy Guevara (a young wrestler that he took under his wing), Jake Hager (a big tall dude with MMA experience), and Santana & Ortiz (a tag team of New Yorkers of Puerto Rican origins with a mean streak). They have been a group since the start of the company. They were originally bad guys, but the fans took a liking to them and they're now the good guys.
The Men of the Year are Scorpio Sky and "All Ego" Ethan Page, a team which formed because they both thought that they represent "real" masculinity, with everything that it entails: being real tough guys, wearing nice clothes, and going to the gym all the time (don't worry, they're the bad guys). For this match, they will partner with American Top Team, one of the leading gyms in MMA, which has trained numerous world champions in UFC and Bellator.
The Match: This one is a long one! A few months ago, Dan Lambert was invited to speak on AEW TV because the show was in his hometown, and as the coach and head of American Top Team, he's a well known figure in combat sports. Instead of saying how much he enjoyed the show, he took the opportunity to verbally vomit on the AEW roster, complaining that most of the wrestlers were too small and too flashy, unlike the real tough guys that he used to watch in the 80s or the MMA fighters that he trains. AEW wrestler Lance Archer marched to the ring mid-speech, having heard enough. He slammed Dan Lambert to the mat a few times, shutting him up... for a little while.
Dan Lambert came back a few weeks later, and continued to lash out at the AEW roster for being everything that he thinks is wrong with society. He now championed the tag team known as Men of the Year, saying that they were the only people in AEW to reach his lofty standards (Scorpio Sky is a trained MMA fighter, while Ethan Page has a black belt in both karate and tae kwon do). This time, it was Chris Jericho, a 30 years veteran, who interrupted to tell him that if he did not like pro wrestling, he did not need to be on a pro wrestling show. Lambert did not like this, and interfered during a subsequent match between Jericho/Hager and Sky/Page, giving the win to his friends.
The two teams met again a few weeks later, this time in a 3 vs 3 match, with one of Lambert's top fighters completing the Men of the Year trio. Once again, Lambert interfered and gave his team the win. The Inner Circle, going all in, challenged the Men of the Year and three of American Top Team's members of their choosing (the word "member" is very important). Lambert agreed, and so the Inner Circle picked the following three members: Junior Dos Santos (a former UFC Heavyweight Champion), Andrei Arlovski (another former UFC Heavyweight champion AND holder of the records for the most wins IN HISTORY in the heavyweight division), and... Dan Lambert himself. You see, Lambert had said the Inner Circle could pick "any member" of American Top Team, not "any fighter", so it looks like the manager has to fight for once, and the AEW fans are really looking forward to the cranky boomer finally getting his mouth shut.
Falls Count Anywhere: Christian Cage & Jurassic Express vs Superkliq
The Background: Christian Cage is a veteran wrestler who has been on national TV since 1998 and who has become a respected mentor to many rookies. He's also the pride of Toronto! His partners for this match are Jurassic Express, a team formed by "Jungle Boy" Jack Perry and Luchasaurus. Perry is a young upstart who has been improving tremendously over the past two years, and he is also the son of the late Luke Perry. Luchasaurus is, well, a wrestling dinosaur and Jungle Boy's best friend. He also claims to be millions of years old.
The Superkliq is a subgroup of Kenny Omega's faction The Elite. Its members are Adam Cole (a self-absorbed man who loves to repeat his name like a Pokémon) as well as brothers Matt and Nick Jackson. The Jacksons also wrestle as the tag team The Young Bucks, and they were Tag Team Champions for nearly a year before losing to the Lucha Brothers. They are almost as self-absorbed as Adam Cole, but they are about twenty times as obnoxious.
The Match: The Jurassic Express has been a thorn in the side of the Young Bucks throughout their reign as tag team champion. When Cole finally joined the company in September, they asked for the help of their long time friend to get rid of Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus. What started as a simple post-match attack with steel chairs (you know, something normal) quickly degenerated when Christian Cage jumped in to help his pupils. Cole and the Bucks retreated for the day, but jumped their enemies from behind the following week, eventually throwing them off the TV stage and into tables and electrical boxes about ten feet below. Christian Cage and the Jurassic Express disappeared for a few weeks, and the Superkliq was content, having vanquished their foes.
In October, during a Superkliq interview, Cage and his friends returned, turning the tables. After another backstage brawl, Cage's team emerged victorious, settling the score in their mind. Of course, the Superkliq just cannot take a hint, and instead of calling it even, they challenged Cage, Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus to a Falls Count Anywhere match at Full Gear.
Now, the previous match pitting the Inner Circle against American Top Team is a Street Fight, while this one is a Falls Count Anywhere match. What is the difference, you might ask? A Falls Count Anywhere match means that a pin or a submission may be registered ANYWHERE in the building; the fight could end up backstage, or in the stands, and the match could still end at any time if one of the wrestlers pins an opponent. A street fight, on the other hand, must end in the ring like any other match. The difference is that, being a street fight and all, weapons are legal, as are any moves usually banned in a contest (eye gouge, biting, low blows, etc.)
And now you know!
Darby Allin (w/ Sting) vs MJF (w/ Wardlow & Shawn Spears)
The Background: Darby Allin is the king of all edgelords: he is brooding, he paints half of his face like a skeleton, he skateboards, and he enjoys pain. Hell, his finisher is called "The Coffin Drop" (not to be confused with "Coffin Flop"). He is accompanied by his idol, Sting - that is wrestling's Sting, and not tantric sex Sting. Sting is another edgelord, but one who has been wrestling since the mid 80s, and who is now 62 years old. And yet, he still paints his face like The Crow because the entire package makes long time fans like me forget that he's not what he used to be and instead make us get giddy with nostalgia. FUN FACT! This Sting actually holds the trademark for the name "Sting" in America, and graciously lets the "other" Sting use the name for a single dollar every year.
MJF - which stands for Maxwell Jacob Friedman - is a young, rich prick who never had to work a day in his life and has used his money to buy opportunities in the wrestling world. You know, the worst kind of person. He's the leader of The Pinnacle, a faction of hired guns who he pays handsomely to do his bidding. He only wrestles when he absolutely needs to - his contract stipulates he must fight at least once every thirty days. On his days off, he like to run his mouth and insult people in the worst ways, throwing his Pinnacle goons at other wrestlers until he is painted in a corner. Wardlow and Shawn Spears are two of those goons. Wardlow is the biggest one, and he seems to be developping a conscience lately. Spears, on the other hand, is a goofy Canadian with good skills, but who bridges the gap with his more talented opponents by hitting them with a chair whenever he can.
The Match: MJF and Darby Allin have often been compared to each other, because they are both young talents who got their first chance at the same time in AEW. MJF got tired of the comparison, so he had his "friends" in The Pinnacle beat up Allin with steel pipes. Allin of course did not appreciate it, so he came back and challenged MJF to a match, saying that he could not be broken. MJF of course took that as a challenge, and brought up the very real accident in which Allin was at 5 years old, where his drunk uncle crashed the car and died while Allin was stuck waiting for help. It seemed like Darby was about to snap, but he held it in, thanking MJF for the anger (because he's an edgelord and feeds on pain), saying he would see him at Full Gear. And NOW, MJF is scared.
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So there you go! Don't hesitate to hit me up on the Discord if you have any questions, and have fun!
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