00:00John Moxley retains the AEW World Championship, Daniel Garcia wins the TNT Championship, and
00:07the Costco guys are super over. I'm Luke Owen and this is my review of AEW Full Gear
00:122024… in about as long as this video takes.
00:19Before we get into the full Full Gear review, one of the things I didn't really get to
00:22cover in yesterday's WrestleTalk News was the change to the Women's War Games match.
00:28CM Punk was announced as the 5th guy for the OG Bloodline against Bloodline 2.0 in
00:32the men's match, but the babyface side of the women's match seemed to lose someone
00:36when Jade Cargill was revealed as being attacked backstage. WWE taped next week's Smackdown
00:42which revealed her replacement, so if you want to avoid that, skip ahead about 10 seconds.
00:473, 2, 1, it's CM Punk. JK, it's Bayley.
00:52Fightful Select are reporting that it was intimated to Fightful that the Jade Cargill
00:56angle was to cover a legitimate injury. This isn't confirmed though as Sean Ross Sapp
01:01adds that he's working on confirming this news. Now let's get into AEW.
01:06The pre-show opened with Deonna Purrazzo taking on Anna Jay in only the second women's match
01:10on the card, and according to Sean Ross Sapp on the post-show Fightful review, this was
01:15a match that Purrazzo had to fight to get added. She hasn't wrestled in a few months,
01:19reportedly is not injured, she's just not booked. And lol, then she lost here in her
01:23hometown. That'll teach you for trying to get more women on the show. Buddy Matthews
01:27won a very fun four way with Commander, Beast Mortis and Dante Martin, and was the most
01:31over of the four despite Beast Mortis being there. But the real highlight of the pre-show
01:35was the Costco's match as Big Boom AJBQT Marshall with The Rizzler and Big Justice
01:42at ringside. This was a perfect celebrity match even though AJ is a former wrestler
01:47and was in the end one of the most over things on the show. Anecdote is not evident, but
01:52someone did tell me on social media over the weekend that they have not watched AEW since
01:57they aired the Punk footage, but did plan to check out the pre-show to see the Costco
02:02guys. Tony Khan on the post-show Media Scrum said that his own friends who don't watch
02:07wrestling said they would actually check out AEW to see this match. It'll be interesting
02:12to see if this does create late PPV buys. Credit to all the guys in the match as well,
02:17particularly QT who pushed for this match to happen and it was a hell of a lot of fun.
02:22The main show kicked off with what I thought was going to be the party match opener where
02:26everyone just does big moves to pop the crowd as Private Party defended their tag titles
02:30against The Outrunners, Kings of the Blackthrone and The Acclaimed, but it was more about the
02:34latter team's break-up angle. Which is getting to A-Town down under levels of just break
02:39up already. They did the wacky spot where both of them are the legal man so they try
02:43to pin each other which was dumb when the New Age Outlaws did it 25 years ago and did
02:48not age well when New Day tried to do it nearly a decade ago. Private Party won after
02:52more miscommunications between Bowens and Caster and it was about the second move they
02:56did in the match as they spent the rest of it bumping around for everyone else's moves.
03:00This was an odd match and not the best use of all of these teams.
03:03MJF beat Roderick Strong in a very good match that did not have a huge amount of heat. MJF
03:09targeted Roddy's hands and fingers which led to the finish where he tapped out to the
03:12Salt of the Earth armbar very quickly. MJF got a chair and pilmanised Roddy's hand
03:16and only then did Adam Cole and The Kingdom run down for the save. Kyle O'Reilly also
03:20came out and shoved down Cole, blaming him for what happened to Roddy.
03:23Mercedes Monet hasn't had the best reception in her AEW run going by the comments here
03:28on this channel and on the WrestleTalk Podcast, with some arguing she's been a bit of a
03:33bust. But tell that to this match with Chris Statlander which was absolutely awesome. Monet
03:37tried every trick she had against the power of Stat, but Chris kept on getting up, kept
03:42getting back in the ring and kept kicking out. But Monet was no slouch either as she
03:47also survived Stat's power offence including kicking out of a superb F5 reversal when she
03:52caught Monet from the Frog Splash. The finish was great too, as Statlander hoisted her up
03:56like she did on Dynamite, but this time Monet was able to reverse and throw Chris into the
04:01ropes, rolling her up for the retention. Really good match, but one that does highlight why
04:06this Camille storyline just isn't clicking as Monet won clean here. Again. Therefore
04:12not requiring a heater at ringside.
04:15Also awesome was Hangman Page vs. Jey White, who had one of my favourite opening matches
04:19of the year at last month's WrestleDream, and this was a great follow-up that played
04:23off a lot of what happened in that match. Just as Jey did to Hangman at WrestleDream,
04:28Page went after White's knee throughout this match, at one point even putting his
04:31boot between the guardrail and booting it, then putting on his own ankle lock. Jey went
04:36after Hangman's knee again, but in the end it was his wrestling acumen that got him
04:41the win, as he managed to counter Hangman's counter of the Blade Runner into another Blade
04:45Runner from out of nowhere. This was so great, but surprisingly will not be the last we see
04:52of these two on this here show.
04:54In easily my most anticipated match of the night, Kyle Fletcher and Will Ospreay had
04:58an absolutely storming match that was every bit as great as the smart people in the room
05:04expected it to be. Fletcher was vicious with Will, going after his shoulder and ripping
05:09off the medical tape, culminating to a gnarly leaping Tombstone off the apron onto the steel
05:14steps. Let me tell you, when these lads get going, there's nothing quite like it, and
05:20the crowd reactions reflect that. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but you cannot
05:25deny that what they do gets over, and their sequences of counters and reversals got this
05:30crowd on their feet. But that Tombstone ended up being the difference maker, as Will tried
05:35to hit the Hidden Blade, but all the damage to the arm meant it was ineffective. Either
05:39that or Fletcher is a Hidden Blade type Pokemon, as he just seemed to absorb the blow and it
05:44made him stronger, hitting the top rope Brain Buster for a clean win. I said on the Full
05:49Gear Predictions video that Will would go out of his way to put Fletcher over here,
05:54and he did just that.
05:56Which brings me to you, Cody1390, who left a comment on our predictions video saying
06:02that they were always planning on backing us over on Patreon, smart guy, but thought
06:06that Tempest and I were high for thinking that Fletcher would win, laying down the offer
06:12that if Kyle won here at Full Gear, he would support us on Patreon for two straight months.
06:18So thank you Cody1390, I look forward to seeing your name in the comments on our Patreon posts
06:23with great interest.
06:25Mina Shirakawa came out for Mariah May's champagne celebration and put her over as
06:29the love of her life, but May seemingly can't let people get too close to her as she went
06:34to crack the champagne bottle over Mina's head, but Shirakawa ducked and booted it out
06:38of her hand. She speared her off the stage through some tables, kissing her with her
06:41bloody mouth just as May had done to Toni Storm. A good TV angle that didn't really
06:47need to be here on PPV.
06:49Daniel Garcia won the TNT Championship from Jack Perry in a good match and got a very
06:53nice emotional video package for his entrance featuring home video footage of his childhood
06:58and a phone call from his mum. Very sweet. But the sweetest thing for me was Daddy Magic
07:03after Garcia won, shouting that it's been just one year since Danny's losing streak
07:09in the C2, and this victory is a testament to how hard he has worked to overcome those
07:14losses. A great advert for the upcoming C2, which starts this Wednesday on Dynamite, and
07:20Fightful Select are reporting that along with Okada, we will see Will Ospreay, Ricochet,
07:24Kyle Fletcher, Darby Allin, Shelton Benjamin and Claudio Castagnoli in this year's tournament.
07:30The full list will be released later today.
07:32Speaking of Konosuke Takeshita and Ricochet, they had a very good match for the International
07:36Championship, which Takeshita won clean with a top rope Falcon Arrow. I appreciated all
07:41the clean finishes on this show and the restraint from using Big Blood as that was all saved
07:45for the main event, and therefore it meant more.
07:48Maybe it's just because I've got TNA on the brain at the moment because of that big
07:51near one hour video on the company's history that went live yesterday, or because Oli and
07:56I have been reviewing these shows over on our Patreon, which Cody1390 will be enjoying
08:01soon, but there was something about Bobby Lashley and Swerve Strickland that made me
08:05think of the first match between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe at Genesis 2006. The arguments
08:11on the wrestling forums at the time were that it made sense for Angle to win as it was his
08:16PPV debut and he was the big star from the big company that had chosen the number two
08:21promotion, but Samoa Joe would get so much more from beating that guy and it would ultimately
08:27mean more.
08:28The same can sort of be said for Bobby and Swerve. Sure, we want to put over the Hurt
08:33Syndicate and the power of Bobby Lashley so it does make sense to put him over on his
08:37PPV debut, but former World Champion Swerve Strickland could have gained so much by beating
08:43him in that PPV debut. But I could be wrong, as Bobby did win here and Swerve looked awesome
08:49coming out of it, so maybe everyone's a winner. Swerve had Bobby on the ropes after
08:53a Swerve Stomp through the Spanish announce table, but a distraction in the form of MVP
08:57led to Lashley spearing Swerve through the barricade and putting on the Hurt Lock for
09:02the win. Hurt Syndicate also laid out Prince Nana after the match and stood tall.
09:06And the main event saw Jon Moxley take on Orange Casty not only for the AEW World Championship,
09:12but also, apparently, the actual soul of All Elite Wrestling. Dude, this was not a
09:18wrestling match, this was a f***ing fight and an awesome one at that. Moxley is such
09:23a good wrestler and brawler and Casady is a perfect babyface. He was busted open early
09:28which made his comeback, including hands in the pocket, slow kicks, all the more great.
09:33Because here is the magic of Orange Casady. At no point going into this match did I think
09:39that Orange Casady was winning. But like Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber 2023, Casady
09:45made me believe he could. His nearfall after cracking Mox in the head with the briefcase
09:49had me and this Full Gear crowd on their feet, totally buying it as a finish. Credit to Mox
09:56on that kick out as well. Here's a fun fact, if I write Death Riders in a YouTube description,
10:01it gets flagged as a potential word that could cause demonetisation on a video. So we decided
10:05on the WrestleTalk Podcast that we would rename this very cool group of baddies to
10:10the D-Riders. And I see there being no issue calling them that. So the D-Riders came out
10:16and the conglomeration brawled with them and Willow Nightingale made her return to AEW
10:21taking out Marina Shafir. But sadly, it was not enough as Mox hit a Death Rider for the
10:27win. And then came a very wacky post-match angle where Hangman Page ran down to face
10:31off with Jon Moxley, and Christian Cage laid out the champ with the Unprettier and Page
10:35handed over the Money in the Bank contract, and then Jay White stopped Cage from cashing
10:39in. And as the D-Riders left, Darby Allin crashed his car into theirs and scared them
10:43off. Very, very wacky, and from what I've heard, it will lead to a world's end main
10:51event of Jon Moxley, Adam Page, Jay White and Christian Cage in a four way for the world
10:56title. AEW pay-per-views always deliver and Full Gear was no different, but it is also
11:02indicative of where AEW is right now. That this place was packed with over 10,000 fans
11:09that weren't hot for a lot of what was being put in front of them. It says a lot when the
11:14Costco guys were one of the most over things on the whole card. But there is also a lot
11:18to be excited about, especially as the C2 starts this week. And why not check out the
11:24TNA video I talked about earlier as I ask the question, who really killed TNA's momentum
11:29from about 15 years ago? Spoiler, it was not Scott D'Amour.
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