The ending to the AEW Full Gear 2025 pay-per-view caught everyone by surprise as Samoa Joe defeated Hangman Page to become the AEW Men's World Champion for the second time. Fans in the crowd and on social media were angry at the decision to take the belt off of Page, who won the title from Jon Moxley back at AEW All In Texas. However, despite some pockets of the AEW fanbase being outraged that the call to make Joe the champion was made, it wasn't as if it was something that came together at the last minute, with Bryan Alvarez on "Wrestling Observer Radio" claiming that it was the plan all along.
"They have a plan. I don't know if it's a good plan but they have one because this was not something where Vince McMahon showed up the day of the show and changed the finish. This has been in the works for a while. This was planned for a while, and we'll see where it goes." A similar level of shock came about when Joe originally won the AEW Men's World Championship from MJF at the Worlds End pay-per-view in December 2023, with many reports claiming that Joe was planned to be the man to end MJF's 13 month title reign for many months.
With the victory, Joe became only the fourth man in the history of AEW to have held the Men's World Championship on more than one occasion. He joins the man he beat, Hangman Page, as well CM Punk who both had two reigns with the title, and Jon Moxley who currently holds the record of most reigns as AEW Men's World Champion with four.
Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
