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Full Gear IV - 11/19/2022


Dolfan in NYC

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I'd be fine with a "Best of" series if it was built up.

Right now The Elite should be pissed with Pac and Fenix and there's your basis for a rematch at Winter is Coming.

Booking a Bo7 series right out of the gate makes no sense from a kayfabe/logic standpoint and screams: "We wanna do 6 starz! ZOMG U GUYZ!!!"

And I say that as someone who was clapping like a circus seal at the 4 way super kick between the Bucks and Luchas.

Edited by L_W_P
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MJF is now the AEW World champion. Great to know a wrestler can do absolutely nothing worthwhile over the past year, do nothing but promos and is awarded the World title. They should rename it to the AEW Promo Championship because that's all MJF can do.

Let me know when a REAL wrestler wins the title.

Edited by Andrew POE!
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Let me get this outa the way: I HATED the ending. 

But, only because I wanted Regal, Bryan, Claudio, and Mox to be BCC 4 Life and stay together forever.

I was a hell of a main event, though. I prefer MJF in the ring to MJF on the mic. Anyone else? 

MJF now stands for Muscular Jacked-up Freak.

I was surprised by the crowd booing Moxley!

I guess Regal and Bryan can stay together... we'll see how Friedman fits in.

I felt like it was a 4-way tie for MOTN: Kingston's Road, the cage match,the Trios Title match, and Storm vs Hayter. All great in their own way and four really different and distinct matches. Impressive.

Loved the pre-show! Loved the crowd!

My mark-out tank was empty by the time the tag title match rolled around. 

I enjoyed the overarching theme of "using tools ( such as hammers or pliers) for evil will win you a title but cost you your immortal soul."

PRE-SHOW

Rocky! Nice job on saving the "mystery partner" reveal. Having Hausen and Cassidy together makes total sense now. The goofy dudes who can really go. 

Full Gear would be a good nickname for Brian Cage. Who doesn't love a nice "David and Goliath" plus "Injured bodypart"  story? Nice structure.

I am so excited for the AEW video game!

Kingston Road Style! Pure Wrestling Love! Imagine getting respect from your idol like that. I can confirm that Akiyama is an awesome dude. I "almost" started crying when Kingston paid tribute to Baba, Jumbo, Misawa...

MAIN CARD

I see TWO Cages! That was a hell of a crimson mask on Jungle Boy, and some classic cage match images. Christian stealing the key was too slick.

FUCK C.M. PUNK!! and COLT CABANA chants!! 😆

What a pop for The Wayward Sons! I'm working on a "Top 200 Spots" list for the Trios Title match. Not a complaint.

BEST OF SE7EN!! 

What's in the box?! WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?

Tony K: More wrestling!

Jade's Thundercats ring gear! Oh, my!

First Nyla fell down, then...

Spoiler

Nyla rose

What have I become? The sing-along is still one of the best things in wrestling. Or, in Sports Entertainment. I think they did a good job of using the 4-way stip to tell stories. Sammy is The Real Judas. Also Bryan.

I was hoping the crowd would be 100% behind Britt, forcing AEW to

Spoiler

...turn the Paige

BMMSM was BMMSM but also Wardlow flying. More like Ward-high, eh? Eh? Loved the Ohtani shout out. You can donate when you go to shows in Japan.

ISHII!!! STONE PITBULL!!! AEW really does love us! I take back all that Burger King stuff...

...oh. Jeff Jarrett.

Enjoyed Satnam re-defining "Catch as catch can."

 Hayter and Storm beat the hell outa one another, had so many great near-falls, and as much as I like Toni Storm I am glad they pulled the trigger. Crowd was awesome. Match was awesome.

I was semi-hemi-burned out for the final two matches but they were both really good.

What a show!

Ishii coming up!

Best of Seven!

Takeshita is All Elite.

Oh. Hell. Yeah.

 

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I pretty much loved everything on this show except the ending of the main event. I'm curious where the BCC goes from here. I'd like them sticking together minus Regal, a name change, and all going after MJF. I'm tired. I've been at the movies for five hours. 

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I thought the six-man was great. I have confidence that they can put on 6 more great matches. I doubt they'll try to top themselves with spots every time out. It'll probably be some sort of hammer-related story throughout the series.

There are MJF segments that I've loved, but I'm not keen on him winning the title or being with Regal going forward. His promo at the scrum tonight just reinforced that.

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I'm suprised by the lack of returns tonight. I was hoping we'd see House of Black attack both The Elite and Death Triangle after the match. I was also hoping we'd see a former ROH champion, namely Homicide confront Chris Jericho. That would have gotten quite a reaction in the NJ/NY area. The lack of Thunder Rosa to combat Britt Baker or confront Jamie Hayter also surprised me. 

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The main event was great with MJF as your territorial babyface absorbing an ass-beating from your cocky touring champion.  Having a double ref bump and a manger turn was about as Dusty-ass a finish as you can get without actually doing a Dusty finish.  Also a nice callback to the end of the dog-collar match, but with MJF coming out on top.

For a show I wasn't too stoked for going in that was pretty damned great and didn't feel quite as exhaustively long as some other PPVs. (Looking at you, All Out)

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Jungle Boy/Luchasaurus is going to be hard to top. Holy shit. Love all the Taler/Shawn tributes including Perry's gear and HOLY SHIT the finish as well. Looked like he had a nasty bruise after that one. This surprised me on every single level, unbelievable outing. Up there for second best AEW cage match ever, behind that Lucha Bros/Bucks title match. And props to Luchasaurus, he seemed to work really hard on this one, and it showed. 

Goosebumps for Elite entrance but stream crashed as soon as they hit the ring, and the first few minutes back were in RealPlayer quality. I love how much the Trios titles resemble the Ron Simmons/Vader WCW belt.I need Omega and Pac to wrestle at least 3x a year moving forward. Chef's F'N KISS to my beautiful Jersey neighbors for the 'Fuck CM Punk' and 'Colt Cabana's chants. Say what you will about the Bucks' and Omega's schtick, but I missed the hell out of those guys. this was honestly the exact type of early-AEW fix I needed in my life.

Picked up Jade/Nyla halfway through, as my internet or BR once again died. I really enjoyed the part where Nyla hit Jaded on Jade, it was an awesome visual, and a great power move (and likewise for Jade at the actual finish). Huge Queen-sized bump by Nyla on that senton attempt, kudos to her for that one. And big shout out to both ladies for their gear, they both absolutely killed it on that area tonight.

Bryan Danielson is the greatest wrestler to have the worst music, I think. @The Natural forgive me, I HATE this song. It reminds me of the Uncle Kracker song X-Facter used to walk out to in 2000. Digging Sammy coming out without the usual Inner Circle-era biker colors on, but not digging on the replacement very much - at least the idea was there. Nice to see the singer from Midnight Oil in the house singing Judas tonight. Feed has died once again, and I've returned to Jericho visibly calling a spot in Danielsons ear. This double crab, you can see Bryan laughing, I love it! And Sammy and Jericho with the old Le Sex God's pose, too, that was a nice shout out to that period. Sammy pulling Jericho off Claudio and everything that came after with those was really great, too, especially twith him hitting the codebreaker and attempting the lion tamer. Excalibur blew my mind when he mentioned they've been a team since the first Dynamite - its impressive they were kept apart this long and resisted the urge to make them come to blows during the original IC breakup. Thought Sammy was gonna do it with that killer shooting star. Taz's "Don't do the striking game with this dude" was a great line, and it lined up perfectly with Danielsons facials. The dueling hammer elbows in Claudio/Danielson's part was really cool. Jericho creeping up while Danielson had Sammy trapped was such a great visual. Glad Jericho retained, and I'm wondering now if we'll get Sammy/Jericho at Final Battle. That's going to be a cool one to see at such an early, smaller venues show, if so (or Jericho in general, really - It's still a trip to see him at places like Tokyo Dome after such a long WWE stint - even the first ECW ONS during his time there was interesting).

Opening stretch of Saraya/Britt was awesome with Paige gripping her neck and Britt just smirking. I lost my feed a third time as Saraya grabbed a beautiful headlock. I returned to Saraya booting her in the corner and she looked pretty good. J.R. made some seemingly contradictory points in "I could see this rivalry lasting for years" but also questioning the condition of Saraya's neck a second later. Certainly some of these spots made me wince, the same way I do with Sting, and the same way I did with Danielson at first, but overall I thought she looked absolutely fantastic from what I was able to see. I loved her having to hit her finish twice to beat Britt - keeps her and the promotion looking strong in light of the recent promos by them.

There was a funny moment during Hobbs' entrance where my girlfriend and I both said "I wish this was in a cage too" aloud at nearly the same time, interrupting each other to do so, so should they ever run a rematch in one, there's at least two guaranteed viewers. Wardlow coming off the top is fucking wild, man. That swanton was something, man. Joe is a little slower than he used to be naturally, but I loved the intensity he brought tonight - I missed a lot from him before his arrival here as I quit WWE, but I haven't personally seen that kind of fire from him since probably the Brock title match at Great Balls of Fire '17(?) Hobbs taking the straps down and putting Wardlow into the Earth was sick as hell.i briefly thought Hobbs was gonna just shake off the two powerbombs and keep whipping Wardlow. Great finish with Joe just saying fuck it and grabbing the belt, and at least if Hobbs had to be pinned it was after a bunch of finishers. I suggested unifying the TV titles a few weeks ago, but joked that ROH didn't have TV, so perhaps this is a clue into their future.

ISHII!! And God bless Jericho for the $7K jacket line. Hager/OC's entire interaction was high art. Brilliant promo all around.

Darby jumping off that ladder into Singh's arms was AWESOME. I cannot say enough about that spot. Sting continues to operate in Terry Funk mode, and I thought for sure that dive was overshot, I was so relieved when he stood up. Jeff Jarrett doing the classic Memphis begging off routine was a nice throwback. Singh handling Sting on Dutt's behalf when he had the death lock on was a cool moment, but I was a little worried on that chokeslam for obvious reasons. Jarrett cracking Darby with the guitar during the coffin drop was awesome, as was Darbys Sting -like no sell and comeback - really nice touch to visually show being under Sting's tutelage paying off. SCORPION COFFIN DROP ON SINGH. Fun as fuck. Wonderful, wonderful match, and great use of the veterans. I absolutely love this formula for Sting/Darby's big matches and whoever put this together deserves a raise.

JAMIE FUCKING HAYTER. Finally. A little overbooked, but possibly the best women's match in the history of the promotion; top three, easy. Everything clicked for the most part, and both ladies showed why they're top 5 in the company. Looking forward to the ensuing Britt fued, and hopefully unifying the title vs. Thunder Rosa at some point. It's been so long, I'm beginning to wonder if they'll eventually just drop the 'Interim.' If they're going to continue doing the interim thing, there should be some kind of official rule like, the interim champion unifies the titles by default if you're unable to return within 120 days or 200 days or something (similar to the old '30 day title defense' rule).

Tag match was killer but my only small gripe was that the pliers stuff was a little too similar to the trios deal w the ring bell - but if the intent was to contrast the choices made by Rey as vs Keith, then it worked brilliantly. Great one. Acclaimed having reached this level of fverness is a real pleasure to watch, after having followed their ascension from Pandemic-era Dark. And once again: another great use of a veteran in Billy Gunn. I'll say here what I said to my cousin's husband at Dynamite when we were chanting for him: "Imagine having a time machine and telling little 1998 us this was going on in 2022?"

Feed went out again, but came back up as I heard Tony and Taz debating the 'tri-state area' which got a kick out of me. Love Mox leaning into the boos. piledriver spots on the apron and with the table were wild, man. The whole figure four segment was some really cool shit, and I was a huge, huge fan of MJF's selling in trying to reverse it. Mox going back to work the hurt leg from the tombstone was a nice touch. Avalanche paradigm shift was scary on first glance - but the replay exposed it slightly by showing MJFs feet. Mox's jaw jacking was intense, it seems there's been an effort to save the blue language for PPV, and he let it fly here for sure - but I thought it was very impactful. Speaking of things used sparingly and let flown: holy ref bumps! I had a feeling this was going to be the finish on Wednesday, because I noticed live that Regal kept the knuckles on for the big staredown. Should be interesting to see where we go from here with the BCC (and I'm equally looking forward to some classic villainous promos from Regal). I haven't been feeling particularly religious over the last decade, but I would like to publicly acknowledge God for answering my prayer that there be no involvement from the Firm in this match, or on this broadcast.

If this show is the template moving forward, things are probably going to be just fine. There was no speculation on debuts, no swervey bullshit, just a kick ass show chock full of big names having big matches. There were clearly issues with the build, but for those calling for a reset (much like I was hoping Grand Slam would be) this show feels like it could very well qualify. I mentioned it a few times in my novel above, but there was tons on this show that had a 2019-2021 feel, and I very much appreciated that; at the same time, there were many steps forward that felt like we were heading into what we all predicted the future would look like. HUGE night for 'pillar' wins with Starks, Perry (that's officially his name now, right?), Darby, new first time World champ MJF, plus first time champ Hayter, still-undefeated champ Jade, mega-over under-30 champs in the Acclaimed, and people like Britt, Wardlow, and Hobbs looking good in defeat. Great performances by vets like Sting, Joe, Jericho, Lethal, Mox, Danielson, Claudio etc. 

Phenomenal, back-to-the-roots, wall to wall, great show IMO. Looks like some good TV next week, so let's hope they can ride the wave and capitalize on the momentum. 

Not sure who the outages were on, but I'll include 'em both to be safe, 'cause I'm not in love with either: fuck Comcast and/or Bleacher Report.

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14 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

'd say Regal turning and Swerve turning are the two most likely, with the rest falling to "maybe happening later but not tonight."

 

13 hours ago, Matt D said:

They've made such a big deal about the Dynamite Diamond Ring that I can absolutely see MJF winning with the Power of the Punch from Re

Nice call dudes!

 

Edit: I'm having trouble editing in to quote you @Nice Guy Eddie but I was also surprised Thunder Rosa didn't show up. If you watched the pre-show stuff or the Road To special after Rampage last night, J.R. made a comment like "We know who Hayter's got in her corner; makes you wonder who Storm's gonna have in hers to balance it out" so I thought for sure it was gonna be Rosa returning to make the save for Toni, forming an uneasy alliance on the road to unifying the titles vs Hayter, maybe a big TV tag with Britt/Hayter vs Toni/Rosa in the lead up. This could still be where we're heading, but I figured it would start tonight 

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
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The funny part is I had to explain during the main event to my brother, my personal justification on why Regal would help MJF because he thought it was a crazy idea. Then the way I described it is exactly what happened. Occasionally I get one right (I watch too much wrestling).

Really glad not to see The Firm. Would be ok with never seeing The Firm again but I appreciated the one night break anyway.

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12 minutes ago, Ace said:

Tony K said the Bucks requested Wayward Sons.  Kansas was easily to deal with, so while it was only licensed for one show, Tony is open to work with Kansas again.

 

I read a rumor they attempted to trademark "The Wayward Sons" but then abandoned it, so maybe a name change was kicked around or something. 

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36 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I need Omega and Pac to wrestle at least 3x a year moving forward.

I must have been using the bathroom when they announced that best of 7, as I just learned of it when going back pages to read everyone else's reactions to the show. (I typed my notes live). Apologies for having put this into the universe, non-Elite fans

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Going back a few pages, I was re-reading some posts and @DEANmade mention of how fun he thought the near-countout spot was in the main event, and I have to agree - but expanding further, I want to shout out MJF overall for pulling out a bunch of really cool '80s shit like that tonight. From that, to the big figure four struggle I mentioned in my manifesto above, to the great selling of the knee on the apron piledriver, to the strut after Mox's drop-down, the white boots - not that the match lost a ton without it, but I'm actually pretty surprised he didn't bleed to top it all off. It was a wonderful tribute to that sort of territorial champion era thing @Zimbraalluded to above.

I am suddenly able to properly tag people again as of this post, so there's also that!

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11 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

Did Wheeler Yuta see this coming?

Great shout - conspicuous lack of Daniel Garcia on this show, as well. If you go back to the Dynamite thread this past week, I was certain one or both would be involved of the finish of the ROH four way- I look forward to watching that aspect unfold.

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8 minutes ago, SirFozzie said:

In my efforts to make @DEAN say something like OH GODDAMNIT at least two times a month... I have a pun for him.

 

"The Death Triangle/Elite finish had Fenix channeling his inner 80's Oaktown rapper and going "Please Hammer, Hurt 'em""

 

JEEEEEZUS!

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That PPV rocked so fucking hard that I don't even know where to start. Honestly, the only thing I'm kinda down on is the finish to Moxley vs MJF, but even then, those two motherfuckers stiffed the motherfucking shit out of each other for 20 some odd minutes and beat each other's brains in for our entertainment. And no Firm! 

JAMIE MOTHERFUCKIN HAYTER! PRO. WRESTLING. MOTHERFUCKERS. I was jumping out of my seat for that win. Hayter rules the fucking world and is maybe the best female wrestler in the US. I can't say enough for how awesome she is. Every little thing she does is amazing.

GIANT MOTHERFUCKING HOSS FIGHT FOR THE TNT TITLE! SUPER CLUBBERIN' ALL UP IN THIS! I didn't really care who won because we all won. 

The Trios Titles match rocked my motherfucking balls off. And I loved the finish. I went from being all in on the Elite winning to really wanting Death Triangle to win and Death Triangle indeed won. Now, there's no way in hell they're going to win the best of 7 considering match 7 will be in LA, but we get 6 more matches and I'm already out of balls for them to rock off.

JUNGLE BOY IS A MAN, BABY! I mean, doing a dive off the cage through a table is risky enough, but a fucking elbow drop? You gotta be shitting me. Jack Perry has more guts than brains.

I enjoyed the shit out of Nyla vs Jade. In fact, it may be my favorite Jade match. Nyla's entrance was king sized. And then Jade nearly one-upped up by coming out in Cheetara cosplay.

Like...Look, this PPV ruled and I enjoyed damn near everything. Better yet, it got kicked off with the final zero hour match with Eddie getting to live out his dream match. I cried! You cried! We all cried! Eddie rules the world!

AEW RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD

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