Two years ago when AEW announced one of their annual pay-per-views would be called “Full Gear,” I was skeptical. Pro wrestling is already a tough sell, now this new company that might be cool and good is naming shows “Full Gear?” The audacity.
Kenny Omega vs. “Hangman” Adam Page opened up the second edition, and for the third AEW visited AWA Country for Full Gear 2021 with a Year 3 product that is mature enough to power forward with not just the show title, but tributes to the AWA and bloody brawls and show graphics with clocks built into the wrestler’s eyes and faces.
Welcome to the Target Center. We still miss Eddie Guerrero.
0. Thunder Rosa & Hikaru Shida vs. Nyla Rose & Jamie Hayter w/ Vickie Guerrero
Just one of those matches. Shida took heat, they stuck to formula, and Nyla Rose did the frog splash. Thunder Rosa continues to command more of a presence than 99% of wrestling, and the dropkick she does during the hot tag is stupendous. **1/2
1. Darby Allin vs. MJF
On mechanics alone, this match is good: crisp and confident delivery, a few threads to follow, a few peaks rooted in feats of mind-altering human athleticism and possibility. Everything from the early body part work to later near falls was delivered with all the extra physicality or punctuation the opener of a big wrestling card could want, with Darby’s tope suicida and MJF’s Code Red powerbomb counter especially… special.
It was made even better by some things that aren’t necessarily bell-to-bell, though they almost always help — the tone-setting brought by MJF’s robe and cock walk followed by Darby’s black-and-white avant-garde intro video, the general space AEW has carved out that even allows for these two young fellows the breathing room to shine in a serious wrestling match opener — these are the things that make the wrestling move. Besides that though, plenty of great wrestling. ***3/4
2. AEW World Tag Team Title: The Lucha Bros [c] w/ Alex Abrahantes vs. FTR w/ Tully Blanchard
Lots to enjoy here, including good old-fashioned FTR tag shtick and the living legend that is Rey Fénix eventually letting loose. There were Eddie G tributes and a monkey flip cannonball senton, but it mostly just felt like a bunch of fun ideas that didn’t weave together and that’s fine until the match is running 20 whole minutes. Good. Fun. ***1/4
3. AEW World Title Eliminator – Final: Bryan Danielson vs. Miro
This is a rough-and-tumble down-to-earth battle of two of wrestling’s great salesmen, a basic moveset of suplexes, strikes and submissions treated seriously and utilized wisely. It ends out of nowhere but sort of realistically, which was at least consistent with the tone of a match where a man gouged another’s eyes to escape a triangle chokehold.
Danielson spends a lot of this just getting his ass kicked, and seeing his attention to detail as he emoted everything from uncertainty to agonizing discomfort makes this extra fun. He takes a suplex on the floor in the first few minutes and milks it like Misawa: took time, sold pain, wondered both how this effected the the immediate gameplan but also concepts like his comeback, career, family, life, philosophy, art, culture, maybe consciousness itself.
Still though, I guess I’m just wondering: why couldn’t this version of Bryan Danielson vs. this version of Miro be the Greatest Match of All Time instead of merely something Pretty Great that ranks probably in the middle of his Pro Wrestling Return tour? Just asking questions. Miro stonewalling Danielson’s kicks and looking like a psycho with that perfect beard trim was incredible. ***1/2
4. Falls Count Anywhere: Christian Cage, Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Adam Cole & The Young Bucks
For the fourth match on the show, here are The Young Bucks with their beard scruff dyed pink and Luchasaurus wearing dinosaur blue jeans. This wacky match probably wouldn’t have been any better or worse if neither existed, but both were pretty great pro wrestling choices.
The rest? Mixed bag. Among a few stretches of dead space and sequences that could’ve been dialed back some (or completely), they put on a show and over anything proved that balancing a blue jeans street fight with pink tights spotfest is a challenging gig. It closed with a very silly but Ultimately Fun and Actually Effective finish that focused on the real star: Jungle Boy. Adam Cole was game for those ladder bumps too. ***1/4
5. Cody Rhodes & PAC w/ Arn Anderson vs. Andrade el Idolo & Malakai Black
Here is where the show took a little descent, not because of a long wrestling show’s tendency to settle its’ live audience down but because Cody Rhodes and three former NXT Champions wrestled each other for 16 goddamn minutes.
Partners with problems, managers interfering, and wrestling that felt whatever the opposite of urgent was — all of these guys are ordinarily pretty compelling, but paired with each other it was like they all had a flashback to their crippling stifling midcard purgatory and it briefly pumped the brakes on the Full Gears. **1/4
6. AEW Women’s World Title: Dr. Britt Baker [c] w/ Jamie Hayter and Rebel vs. Tay Conti
Big fan of both but carrying 15 minutes of a championship wrestling match in the middle of this card after that tag match just isn’t a core competency. There were a few moments of bliss like Conti smashing the Doctor’s hand to escape Lockjaw, but by the time they were countering holds at the end it felt more like a box they had to tick rather than attempt to win the match. Counterpoint: Tay Conti did a piledriver. **1/2
7. CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston
CM Punk had some real moments in WWE but when he said his time between Ring of Honor and now was a break from professional wrestling, this is definitely what he meant. Plenty on this show went a little too long; this left everybody wanting more. Or not more. If they never wrestle again that’s fine too because we will always have this match. That’s how good it was.
Two unabashed wrestling nerds and true students of the game (lower case) actually went and became superstar pro wrestlers, hopefully in a position to influence more of gesturing around this happening in wrestling: selling, swearing, shit-eating grinning. Seriousness. Seriousness!
It’s a no frills bloody wrestling match that was violent in tone but fun as hell because as CM Punk and Eddie Kingston punched and bled and tried to just wrestle each other to the mat, hordes of dedicated yet deprived hardcore pro wrestling nerds got to see two of wrestling’s all-time great wrestling personalities, two of Their Own, somehow end up in the same big place and throw down. That’s next level.
It could be the best match on mass market American wrestling TV since the 80s ended, but let me think about it. There are just some guys that are real pro wrestlers. I think it’s a charisma thing. And a confidence thing. Probably a lot of other other things I’m clueless about. Or maybe it’s simpler; maybe Jim Ross said it best. What a goddamn fist fight. *****
8. Minneapolis Street Fight: The Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana & Ortiz) vs. Men of the Year (Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky) and American Top Team (Junior dos Santos, Andrei Arlovski & Dan Lambert)
In the span of half an hour, JR went from the fist fight line to saying “not the damn bunt cake.” This was a weaker freak show than Falls Count Anywhere and way worse Fight than Punk/Kingston, two marks against what was already unpleasant.
Dan Lambert commits so hard to the 80s manager shtick that it really does take you back in time, but that fun thing was a small part of this messy 10-man tag with MMA vets and TLC spots. That might sound fun in writing (and moments of fun were had!), but there was too much going on for anyone to accomplish anything. JDS the Wrestler is fun, JDS the Wrestler also gets shouted at by Jericho twice to punch him. **1/2
9. AEW World Heavyweight Title: Kenny Omega [c] vs. Hangman Page
Kenny and Adam work a certain sort of action-packed match, even if one is working through injury and even with an example of a much cooler approach a match back in CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston. Alas: AEW absolutely had to do one thing on this night, and they did that thing.
Kenny bumped for Hangman’s early run like an all-timer wrestling heel champion, then they delivered the trademark Best Bout Machine insanity within what was a pretty delightfully basic babyface match: heat-heat-heat-BOOM! heat-heat-heat-BOOM!
We can talk about the casual Tiger Driver ’98 near fall after Cody used it as a death move a couple weeks ago on Dynamite later, but the inception of All Elite Wrestling’s whole arc sent this Hero on a Journey and — in a twist — the wrestling company actually stuck the landing. ****1/4
Happy Thoughts: They could’ve trimmed some match times or maybe matches — maybe a few names from the 10-man tag — but overall AEW is getting very good at delivering PPVs that conclude a season of stories in satisfying ways and setup enough things to establish momentum for the few months before the next one. Also CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston was on this show. 4.5 / 5.0
