AEW
Full Gear 2022
November 19, 2022
Prudential Center
Newark, New Jersey
Watch: PPV & FITE (Non-US)
Meet Our Reviewer
Jeri Evagood: Reviewers? Reviewers? “Looks around” where is everyone else? Am I the only one here? Why did I get roped in doing this solo? Did everyone else actually have better things to do than watch wrestling? Gross. Anyway, I’m the magic writing girl, the cutest member of VOW, and your reviewer for this evening. This should be a pretty fun show. I’m going to eat chili, drink scotch and enjoy the evening. If you want to following me on Twitter, provided it keeps kicking out out 2.9, I’ll be at @TheJerriest_Jer. If you don’t want to follow me on Twitter, you are making good life choices.
Full Gear Zero Hour
Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta, & Chuck Taylor), Rocky Romero, & Danhausen def. The Factory (QT Marshall, Aaron Solo, Lee Johnson, Nick Comoroto, & Cole Karter)
The Best Friends came out as a foursome to start the match with Danhausen absent. This was a bit more fun and enjoyable than I anticipated. Nothing spectacular but enjoyable enough. Everyone worked hard to make a good opening contest for the pre-show (and the show over all). Near the end of the match QT Marshall had Orange Cassidy posed for a piledriver on the steps when Dan Hausen came out with a spike and a jar of teeth. Danhausen turns the tide and wins the match by shoving teeth down Comoroto’s mouth (standard Greco Roman Wrestling manuever) then kicking him in the head for the victory. He spiked QT Marshall after the match. Fair enough, I enjoyed this. ***
Full Gear Zero Hour
AEW World Championship Eliminator Semi-Final
Ricky Starks def. Brian Cage (w/ Prince Nana)
Good match with the correct ending. Brian Cage and Ricky Starks worked together well and had a decent match. It was pretty straight foward, Cage over powering Starks with Starks having to find a way to counteract and mount his offenses before he finally found an opening to hit a canadian destroyer than his finisher to get the victory. This wall well wrestled and in the end it accomplished exactly what it needed to, Cage came off as a competent opponent and Starks preserved and got the victory. Good stuff *** 1/4
Full Gear Zero Hour
Eddie Kingston def. Jun Akiyama
So this match paired well, very well, with the scotch I am drinking. I feel very good and can’t tell if it’s the scotch or the match. Probably both. Hard hitting and well wrestled. You can tell this match means EVERYTHING to Eddie Kingston and he’s putting all the effort he can into it. Not everything Akiyama looked great, but he was clearly working his ass off and in the end the result was very great stuff. Eddie Kingston go the win which I must admit I was not expecting and it turned into such a feel good and emotional moment over all. This was the top match of the preshow and I’m so glad Kingston was able to get it. This was great. ****
Steel Cage Match
Jungle Boy def. Luchasaurus (w/ Christian Cage)
Jungle Boy started bleeding early in this match. Which I am completely fine with. If you are going to have a grudge match inside the confines of the STEEL CAGE you got to have a little bit of blood going on in my opinion. Enhances things nicely. Jungle Boy got his ass kicked (and bloodied) in this match and it just made him come off more badass when he’s able to survive and deliver punishment of his own. This ruled. This felt like a grudge match, this felt like two forjmer friends turn enemies beating the shit out of each other. An excellent proper PPV opening. I felt Jungle Boy gained a lot from this match, and this might be my favorite singles match Luchasaurus ever had. They both worked really hard to deliver something memorable and in my opinion they delivered. I feel good after this match….. It might be the scotch. Either way this is called the good shit. ****¼
AEW World Trios Championship
Death Triangle (PAC, Penta el Zero Miedo, & Rey Fenix) © defeated The Elite (Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, & Nick Jackson) (w/ Brandon Cutler)
The Elite make their return to Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas and the crowd goes absolutely nuts for it. THIS WAS ELECTRIFYING AND INSANE. The Elite wrestled like mad men and the Death Triangle wrestled like men who refused to be out maddened. This was awesome shit with an electrifying crowd eating up everything that was fed to them. Everyone was mostly on point throughout this entire match, and there was some insane sequences and moments that fired things up more and more. Once again Pac tried to convince Fenix to use the ring hammer and Fenix refused, which leads to them almost losing the match. I felt like I started to sober up from this match from soaking up the pure awesomeness from it. Pac hands Fenix the hammer one final time as he goes up to the one winged angel and Fenix in desperation finally uses it and gets the unexpected victory for Death Triangle. Holy shit, calm my tits, this was fucking awesome and had a nice development at the end with Fenix finally caving in. Fuck, this was awesome. Watch this shit. This is the pro wrestling I crave. I give it the full five. Awesome. Totally Awesome. *****
AEW TBS Championship
Jade Cargill © (w/ Kiera Hogan & Leila Grey) def. Nyla Rose (w/ Vickie Guerrero & Marina Shafir)
Best part of this match? Jade Cargill’s Thundercat attire! I approve! Worse thing about this match? The body of the actual match. Look, I like Nyla, I like Jade, but they are people who need to be paired with specific people that they can feed off of and have their positives enhanced as a result. This did not work. It was a prodding slightly boring mess, which is disappointing. I wanted this to succeed, and while it wasn’t dud, it wasn’t anything I felt worth my time watching. Disappointing affair and the first real miss of the show. Hard Pass. *
ROH World Championship
Chris Jericho © def. Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, & Sammy Guevara
Good stuff (both the match and my scotch). Four men matches can a lot of times be a shambolic mess, but these four men were talented enough and gelled together well enough to get the majority of it to click and it ruled. Very little down time with something going on at at all times. Sammy Guevara in particular performed his ass off to show he belonged with everyone else involved, and the exchanges between Claudio and Bryan Danielson were beautiful. I could’ve used this match been in a slightly tighter (see shorter) package but that minor criticism aside this match was damn good. A lot of moving parts that thankfully worked in the order and were executed with the precision they needed to. A massive improvement and needed return to form after the downer of the previous match. Jericho retains which was expected, but the journey to the destination was great. ****
Saraya def. Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D
As I continue to feel the wonderful effects of this evening’s beverage of choice, I appreciate and respect the warmth it is bringing me. For it was certainly a better feeling than what this match left me. Look, I’m glad Saraya got cleared, I’m glad she battle back and was able to get back in the ring, I’m glad she gets to continue her career. None of those statements though can make me ignore the fact her first match back in five years was a boring plodding affair that did not do anything to make me want to see her in the ring more. Britt Baker did what she could, but Baker while decent isn’t often good enough to be the one to carry a match, and this match needed to be carried. It was not, it was dropped and in the end this match did not live up to anything. I won’t rag on it more than that. This was simply not good. *¾
AEW TNT Championship
Samoa Joe def. Wardlow © & Powerhouse Hobbs
Big beefy men doing big beefy things is one of my favorite kind of matches (and also one of my favorite things to search in certain search engines… What it’s the scotch talking?) This was a hoss fight of the best variety and I really enjoyed watching all three men slug it out and try to out hoss each other. Joe shows he still has a lot in the tank, Hobbs really impressed, and Wardlow looked damn good. Joe would use the title belt in the end to interrupt the powerbomb symphony and choke out Hobbs. Good ending to put fuel into things that capped off a damn good match. It seems every time this show hits a low it bounces back up immediately. ***1/2
Darby Allin & Sting def. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal (w/ Sonjay Dutt & Satnam Singh)
Am I about to give a positive rating to a Jeff fuckin’ Jarrett match in 2022. Gotch Damn. Not enough scotch for this. Truth it, this was a lot of fun. At one point Darby jumped off a ladder and Santam caught him and dropped him with a nasty throw on the entrance ramp. This match started off chaotic but eventually settled down into the ring. While not everything was perfect or crisp (HOW CAN YOU EXPECT IT TO BE) this exceeded any and all expectations I might of had and in the end this match was a success. This might be a favorite Jarrett match of mine, and Darby Allin amping up after the mid air guitar shot was awesome. Okay, I’ll go ahead and say it, this ruled. ****
Interim AEW Women’s World Championship
Jamie Hayter def. Toni Storm ©
Hell yeah, hell yeah. HELL YEAH! This is what I want out of a championship grudge match. Hateful stiff, intense. Even the staredown before the match started was intense. Hayter and Storm just clicked beautifully, Storm bled, and in the end everything was just beautifully violent. This match be one of the best women’s (Interm or otherwise) title matches we had all year. The final stretch was just fantastic. The match built layer upon layer and the crowd built with it. These are the kind of matches I want from this damn division. This was great pro wrestling and my scotch-drinking ass had a huge smile on her face when the match was over. I love pro wrestling, and this was everything I wanted. ****1/4
AEW World Tag Team Championship
The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) © def. Swerve in our Glory (Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee)
I’m so glad we are all in support and celebration of scissoring in 2022. Just please remember this season not everyone will be up to scissoring at the Thanksgiving table, so please scissor responsibly. Keith finally abandons Swerve after Swerve slaps him for refusing to use pliers on Bowens. This was a good match but not on the level of their previous affairs in my opinion. It was solid though, and both teams have enough chemistry to make it mostly worth your while, and we have the end of Swerve in Our Glory which were an excellent tag team while they lasted but I am interested in seeing what they do as single competitors, especially Swerve for me. A good match, the third-best of their trilogy. ***1/2
