This Saturday, AEW's seventh annual FullGear pay-per-view kicks off from the Prudential Center, in Newark,New Jersey, and while there are only six matches on the card as of this writing, there's already plenty on the line five championships and a million dollars, to be blunt! Kyle Fletcher, Brodido, Kris Statlander and "Hangman" Adam Page will all defend their titles, while a Casino Gauntlet will determine the first-ever AEW National Champion and former stablemates Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks will face off with their respective partners for the money.While more matches will likely be added (and may have by the time you read this), there are already plenty of reasons for us to get excited about the card and to take some issue with it.
As always, that's what the WINC staff are here to do! Which matches have us hyped up for the show? Which ones don't move the needle? Which ones do we not even agree on ourselves?It's time to find out the biggest draws and duds for AEW Full Gear 2025!
This year's Full Gear will be seeing a rematch from last year's event with a little bit of a twist, as one year on from Kris Statlander's unsuccessful challenge for the TBS Championship held by Mercedes Mone, she will be defending her AEW Women's World Championship against Mone in her latest attempt at belt-collecting. Combat sports and its little homunculus in professional wrestling has often had an affinity for a classic trilogy, and sticking true to form this will be the third installment to their saga starting last year.
Statlander failed both of her previous attempts to wrest the TBS title from Mone at Full Gear and then Worlds End 2024, but like she promised she would always do, she kept moving forward and eventually landed herself not only the one title that had until the time eluded her, but also the one that Mone had suffered her one and only singles loss trying to acquiesce from "Timeless" Toni Storm. Statlander went one step further after capturing the title in a four-way, defeating Storm once again in singles action on the same night that Mone retained her TBS title to cement a record reign and added another title to her collection: the Interim ROH Women's TV Championship.
It's hard to say who one could consider the A-side in this fight, because one on one hand you have the Women's World Champion who put an end to the reign of the "Timeless One," something Mone had failed to do. While Mone herself may have lost to Storm, she has two victories over Statlander personally, and it feels like only a matter of time before she does eventually get to hold the one belt she has yet to. Statlander needs the win to remove the asterisk from her name, Mone needs the win to keep the gold train rolling, but only one can and will win at Full Gear. That's what makes a money match, and that's the one this writer is looking forward to at Full Gear.
Written byMaxEverett
As we noted in last month's feature for AEW WrestleDream, the concept of Mark Briscoe vs. Kyle Fletcher sounds good on paper as both performers are exciting to watch for different reasons. The space surrounding that line on that paper, however, is filled with troublesome possibilities that I simply can't overlook.
One month after Fletcher successfully defended his TNT Championship against Briscoe at WrestleDream, he will raise it up once more in a no disqualification match at AEW Full Gear, with the added stipulation that if Briscoe loses, he will join The Don Callis Family.The thought of that alone is enough to make me shudder.
Upon current count, the Don Callis Family has 11 active members, including Don Callis himself. Even excluding the injured Brian Cage and Wardlow as well as the legally sidelined Andrade El Idolo, a faction of 11 is still overwhelming, and frankly, hard to keep track of as a viewer sometimes. So why would I want to see Mark Briscoe, one of AEW's most free-spirited and electric performers, confined to a group that must fight for individual air-time? It's that same free-spirit nature that would also be dulled if surrounded by heelish and more serious faction members such as Callis, Fletcher, Josh Alexander, and Lance Archer. For those reasons, I don't want Briscoe to lose.
At the same time, I don't want Fletcher to lose either. Fletcher has repeatedly been labeled as a future AEW World Champion. Right now, it seems too soon for Fletcher to pursue the AEW World Championship again, given that he just lost to reigning champion "Hangman" Adam Page in September. With that in mind, it would be wise for AEW to set Fletcher up on a long, dominant run as TNT Champion with the end goal of eventually emphasis on eventually elevating him to the main event scene on a more permanent basis.
Should Fletcher fall short to Briscoe (whom again, he already defeated) at Full Gear, his momentum in AEW will likely be halted, and even worse, lose the faith of the viewers. Even as a heel, many of us are lowkey rooting for Fletcher simply because he's that good, and when given the opportunity to set himself apart from Will Ospreay, has truly shined as "The ProtoStar." So why put his reign as TNT Champion to an end at only four months?
Needless to say, this match appears to be a lose-lose-lose situation for Fletcher, Briscoe, and the fans, so much so that I'm now wondering if a no-contest outcome is possible under no disqualification rules.
Written byElla Jay
AEW, but more specifically Tony Khan, often suffers from a case of what I like to call "winter fatigue." January always seems like a big reset in All Elite Wrestling, and with the combination of the NFL and Premier League returning, meaning that Khan's focus is often on the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC respectively, a lot of matches and stories in AEW feel a little inconsequential or predictable. With that said, there is a great equalizer to that problem this year, and that is Samoa Joe.
The AEW Men's World Championship match between Hangman Page and Samoa Joe at the upcoming Full Gear pay-per-view is one of those matches that on paper looks exactly as I described before, inconsequential and predictable. However, I believe that this match is going to be a little more up in the air than some would suspect based mainly on the fact that Joe, especially as a heel, is someone you can never truly count out.
If you think back to the tail end of 2023, Joe was in a feud with MJF where he kept saying that he wants a title shot, and after being cheated out of the title at the 2023 Grand Slam edition of "AEW Dynamite,"Joe made good on his promise and entered 2024 as the AEW World Champion. No one really expected that to happen, but once Joe locked in that rear naked choke at Worlds End 2023, it was curtains for MJF, as it should have been. Joe's finishers have often been protected to a good level where when he locks something like that choke in, you lean in and think "wait...is Joe actually going to win this one?"
That is what makes this rematch between Page and Joe so interesting. Joe as a babyface who was simply a bit disrespected by the champion was no match for Page at WrestleDream and was beaten convincingly, but Joe as a heel, now that is a different story. A heel version of Samoa Joe is one of the most legitimate wrestlers of his generation and on his day, he can beat basically anyone he faces. He's proved it in TNA, ROH, "WWE NXT," and AEW with his 2024 title reign. He's choked Page out once before, and while that might have been more so Swerve Strickland didn't become champion, Page has tapped out at the hands of Samoa Joe. This match is a lot more unpredictable than one would suspect, and with the main event slot this time around, it will have everyone on the edge of their seats.
Written bySam Palmer
While the heel turn of Samoa Joe and The Opps following Joe's loss to AEW World Champion "Hangman"Adam Page at WrestleDream was exciting and shocking, I can't say the same, at least about the first half of that, when it comes to their match at Full Gear. Maybe that's because this entire feud started with Page accidentally getting in Joe's way during a match that didn't really mean much on an episode of "Dynamite." While there's at least a bit more substance behind the match this time around, it's still not as exciting as some of the others on the card.
Outside of the heel turn, the only really memorable bit in this feud is the fun moment during the "AEW Fright Night Dynamite" special when Page was very cleverly disguised as Tony Schiavone and nailed Joe with a glass bottle during a toast.
The week following the Halloween bit, Page, HOOK, and Eddie Kingston challenged for the AEW World Trios Championships. That didn't do much for me to hype up the Full Gear match, either. It was pretty obvious that The Opps were going to retain the gold, even if they had to do it by nefarious means, but in the end, it was HOOK to tap, and the match led to the announcement Page and Powerhouse Hobbs will be in a Falls Count Anywhere match next week.
It feels like AEW isn't exactly focusing on the Page and Joe feud, specifically, after the heel turn. Well yes, Page is fighting Joe's teammates in The Opps, something just feels off about it. A vicious heel Samoa Joe should feel a lot more intimidating than he does right now, and it might bebecause he's not on his own fighting for glory right now. And, like the Trios Championship match, it doesn't feel like Joe has any chance of securing the gold, which sucks, because Joe is incredible and should be world champion again at some point.
AEW hasn't given the fans a good swerve, when it comes to the Men's World Championship, at least, in quite some time, unless you're counting a not-so-great one with Jon Moxley retaining it over the likes of Swerve Strickland. The people love "Hangman," and while they also love Joe, the predictability of this match following such a lackluster feud, despite a few bright spots including one really fun viral moment, is what makes this sadly a solid "dud" for Full Gear.
Written by DaisyRuth
