AEW Full Gear 2025 Discussion

[Tennessee Moltisanti]

Got 0 interest in watching Samoa Joe wrestle anymore, let alone seeing him as the World Champion. His first run was boring as hell, just a placeholder Champion.

Hopefully they do an Austin Vs Kane situation and get that title back on Hangman on Dynamite. Or get it on Swerve next PPV.

C2 should be great fun, just the spark that AEW need for those weekly shows. Obvious bet would be Takeshita Vs Okada in the final, but got a sneaky suspicion that we might get Bandido winning it all.

Something absolutely wonderful about Bandido, he gets me on my feet in my living room every match. An incredible wrestler.

Edited November 23, 2025 by sukhy

[DavidB6937]

Give Bandido the title and I'll potentially forgive the Brodido loss AND the Hangman loss. Maybe.

[Supremo]

[RedTwoster]

12 hours ago, sukhy said:

Something absolutely wonderful about Bandido, he gets me on my feet in my living room every match. An incredible wrestler.

I genuinely think he’s the best wrestler I’ve ever seen from an in-ring perspective, throughout my time as a fan. He’s just incredible, you can’t keep your eyes off him. I think Tony Khan was right to put the titles on FTR, as both Bandido and King can add tremendous value to the singles division. Bandido in particular is a world champion in waiting. 

[WyattSheepMask]

I’ve not seen the show yet (probably won’t have any time to until at least Thursday) but know the results, and the fallout on social media to this has been hilarious. 
Everything from “Joes shit” to “Hangman’s reign had only just started” and everything in between. I don’t doubt for a second that Joe isn’t anything more than a placeholder/transitional Champion, he can probably still put on an OK match upto 15 minutes these days, but the theory that it’s going to be a quick title change and switch back to Hangman so that he becomes a three time champ and therefore have more reigns than CM Punk is the best one though. He’s been gone for two years, who fucking cares anymore?

Edited November 24, 2025 by WyattSheepMask

[BomberPat]

I honestly thought this was a really good show, and that after weeks of wonky booking there's a lot more clarity around things now than there have been for a long time. AEW are definitely in a better position coming out of Full Gear than they were coming in. 

I wish they had aired the Death Riders promo that's popped up on social media actually on the show, as it's a great piece of business - Jon Moxley basically saying "wins and losses don't matter, I'm the real winner" after giving up again, with all of the other Death Riders just staring him out like they finally see through his bullshit is a real "images preceding unfortunate events" moment, and the first time in a long while that I've felt like they know what they're doing with the Death Riders angle. It's bizarre that Kyle O'Reilly of all people was the catalyst for this, rather than Darby Allin, the guy that Moxley was already feuding with, and first submitted to, but as long as it's getting there - and maybe the idea is that Moxley was so rattled that he was losing to someone lower than him on the pecking order, rather than this being an effort to elevate Kyle. That said, Kyle has done a genuinely great job.

At the other end of the angle, I think it's mental that Darby Allin had the big impactful win over Moxley in a gimmick match, and then just kept on feuding with the Death Riders anyway. To go from beating the leader of a faction in a gimmick match headlining a PPV to working an undercard match against one of his lackeys and losing to outside interference at the following PPV feels incredibly backwards - my optimistic spin on it is that PAC winning means he's taking over from Mox as leader, but I'd have used a different babyface in that spot than Darby. 

On a similar note, I wouldn't have had Kyle O'Reilly using the anklelock as a triumphant babyface move to show up Jon Moxley on the same show that Josh Alexander is using it as a villainous heel move to try and break Kenny Omega's leg. It's Josh's finish, just have Kyle use any other submission. Hell, have someone use the Scorpion Deathlock - that's what Mox tapped out to against Darby, and every other fucker in the company uses it already anyway - or a chokehold. 

[westlondonmist]

I saw the results and was actually shocked by some of the results. Samoa Joe as your champion? What the fuck, who actually wants to see that? If there isn't enough heel names for a big run then don't defend the title so often. The champion doesn't have to defend the title once a month or more, they can wrestle in tag matches to help further feuds and have another match as main event. You've got 6 men's singles titles (I get 3 of them are held by one person) and two women's singles, surely one of them can main event for one evening or your non title holding big stars such as Toni can main event?

[BomberPat]

Just now, westlondonmist said:

The champion doesn't have to defend the title once a month or more, they can wrestle in tag matches to help further feuds and have another match as main event.

I don't think the problem has been the champion defending too often - Hangman had five defences since winning the belt, one was a rematch with Moxley, two were against Samoa Joe, and the other two were Kyle Fletcher and Lee Moriarty. 

I wish he'd had a longer title reign, but for the most part the challengers just weren't there - Swerve and Ospreay were absent for most of his reign, MJF was done after their first match (and was stale as a challenger anyway), and they rightly kept him well away from Jon Moxley after beating him. There wasn't much of a main event scene for him to defend against, and I get the logic of Samoa Joe as a credible challenger - I don't think there was nearly enough in it to pad out two PPV cycles, and they should have just turned Joe heel sooner, but they could have done a lot worse. I wasn't expecting Joe to win, and it sucks that Hangman seems cursed to have these short reigns, but as a precursor to Swerve returning, I get it - Page not having the title means they can hold off on them fighting each other for longer, and an uneasy alliance between them feels a lot more plausible when neither of them have the title that they both want.

This will likely be Joe's last run, and probably a short title reign - I don't see it lasting more than a couple of months - but Joe with Page and Swerve as challengers feels like a healthier title picture than Hangman Page with nobody to wrestle. The downsides for me are that they didn't do a good enough job building up Joe, that the Hook and Kingston involvement was clumsily executed (Kingston fought off Shibata, but then Shibata came back to the ring and Eddie wasn't even mentioned), and that we're back to a heel champion with lackeys to interfere in his matches, holding on to Trios Titles that are going to go undefended as an afterthought in a singles feud, which feels like going back to the real dark days of the Death Riders.

[RedTwoster]

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I wish he'd had a longer title reign, but for the most part the challengers just weren't there

I’m not sure I agree with that - while they’re light on the heel side, you have a number of interesting options - Orange Cassidy, Darby, Okada, Takeshita, Eddie Kingston, Rush, Powerhouse Hobbs, Bandido, Brody King, Ricochet, The Bucks, Bobby Lashley, PAC and even Mark Briscoe, if you really wanted to do that.

For me anyway, there were more compelling options out there than another Samoa Joe title run. 

[DavidB6937]

Annoying this is that it was Hangman's chance to have a proper, decent and memorable title run considering what had happened previously.

I'm not even against Samoa Joe. It's just that Hangman didn't need to lose to anyone right now. All the arguments about lack of heels or Swerve coming back or whatever else.. it's a pre-determined booked production. If they want to give Hangman something solid to work with then they're capable of coming up with it. It's not like it's impossible because they've been trapped in a corner or something - unless there's a very good reason to get the belt off Hangman specifically.

It's really frustrating to have such a strong character arc for him and a real redemption story and for the champion run to end like this. It could and should have been better.

[BomberPat]

19 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I’m not sure I agree with that - while they’re light on the heel side, you have a number of interesting options - Orange Cassidy, Darby, Okada, Takeshita, Eddie Kingston, Rush, Powerhouse Hobbs, Bandido, Brody King, Ricochet, The Bucks, Bobby Lashley, PAC and even Mark Briscoe, if you really wanted to do that.

For me anyway, there were more compelling options out there than another Samoa Joe title run. 

I agree with some of these, and I think there are decent arguments against the others.

One of my bugbears with AEW is how often they book champions to challenge other champions - in my eyes, it devalues your belt if you're more interested in winning someone else's than defending your own, and it devalues Mercedes Moné's belt collector schtick if there are other people walking around with multiple belts at the same time. With that in mind, I would write off Okada, Brody King and Bandido. Okada's tied up in a storyline with Takeshita, so I would write him out too, and him being IWGP Champion muddies the waters too - on top of that, he spent most of November wrestling in Japan, so wouldn't have been around for the build to Full Gear anyway.

Rush spent about a month on the injured list, so the match would have to have been built in about a week. I want to see them do more with Eddie Kingston, but I'm not convinced he's physically there yet - he's mostly worked tags, not had a match go over ten minutes since returning, and his knee seemed to be bothering him on the Full Gear pre-show. 

The Death Riders need to be kept away from the title picture for the time being after Mox had a stranglehold on the belt for so long, so I wouldn't want to see PAC wrestling for the title until the next stage in the Death Riders' story at least. 

 

The other options in there aren't bad at all. I don't think they're necessarily pay-per-view World Title matches, but there's something. Hangman granting Briscoe a title shot would make for a fun TV main event. I pitched a three-way title match with the Bucks a while back. Lashley and Ricochet both would have made believable challengers, and I think a Hangman/Lashley/Ricochet three-way would have worked out well too. Powerhouse Hobbs I think could have been heated up to be a good challenger with Joe in more of a coach role, but I don't think I'd have bought him beating Hangman. Of course, the question then is why anyone should beat Hangman, and there are other routes they could have taken to keep Page and Swerve apart. But I'm cautiously optimistic about what they're doing for the first time in a while - I'm just hoping the plan isn't just MJF cashing in on Samoa Joe after losing the belt to him back in 2023, but only because I don't think MJF has been missed from TV at all.

 

What's frustrating is that they have shown that they can book someone in a short-term programme well enough to elevate them - people bought Kyle O'Reilly as a threat to Jon Moxley - but chose not to in the main event picture. 

[DavidB6937]

I think one of AEW's strengths is how well they book a lot of people across the board. It's why the CC works so well for me. There's a lot of people on the cusp who shouldn't take much warming up to step up to the next level.

[Chris B]

It says a lot about how much it's missed the mark that people are pissed off about Samoa Joe getting some shine - he's been generally pretty loved up until this.

I haven't watched the show yet, but based on the main thing that I've seen from it, there's quite a difference between the end of this reign and his last. That time, it felt weirdly like a course-correct, like slamming the brakes on him before he was in the right position. This time, the focus was on Hangman and Swerve and what Hangman's going to do next. 

It's a shame it misfired, because as a story, this hasn't been terrible in theory - Hangman starting with respect, then pretty much taking out a faction single-handedly before being outnumbered. Like, Joe's been the underdog here even with the storyline, which is a pretty major change in terms of how confidently Hangman is presented. It just hasn't landed and Joe, sadly, isn't the guy for it anymore.

It feels like Hangman needed that reign-defining feud (in the way the Mox feud after Punk beat him would have been for his first one). But I also think it's maybe difficult to book a strong babyface champion in a storyline-focused way in the era of regular TV and matches. Beating everyone consistently isn't great, and it becomes a bit obvious when they're losing tag matches or non-title matches regularly - or even if they're just beaten down regularly but still super-Cena their way to victory. 

I don't think this was it, but I don't know if there was an it to be had at the moment. With TK obviously tending to have long-term plans, I wonder if we'll see some holding patterns beginning to break now. I could see us getting something of an odd-person faction of Hangman, Swerve, Eddie Kingston and Mox taking on Joe's lot, then the new Death Riders for a while. Which I wouldn't mind.

[BomberPat]

this year's Continental Classic has potential to be absolutely fantastic - we know Okada, Takeshita and Fletcher are in, and I expect Bandido and maybe Brody will be, and maybe at least one if not both of JetSpeed. It would be Don Callis Family overkill, but it would be great to have Hechicero in as well. If the Death Riders are going to take part then either PAC, Claudio or Garcia would be great. It's a shame that they've pretty much ruled out Kyle O'Reilly being in as it would be a perfect way to ride the momentum of beating Moxley, but if he's not, I can see Orange Cassidy doing great things in there, or Roderick Strong for the Conglomeration as the token workhorse that nobody expects to win. Dark horse entrant of Mascara Dorada or somebody else from CMLL would be fun too.

An Okada/Takeshita final seems obvious, but sometimes obvious is obvious because it's the right choice. It will still be a fun journey to get there, and Takeshita getting his big win over Okada in the final of a tournament after a year of being told that Okada's the greatest tournament wrestler in history? Lovely stuff.

 

Back to Joe, he's presumably going to be taking time out early next year to film Twisted Metal again, so I don't see it being a long title reign. If it's a transitional thing to get the title on to somebody else (again, my fear is that it's MJF) without giving that person a win over Hangman, rather than The Opps filling the Death Riders slot of the heel stable hogging the main event, I have a lot more time for it, but it's always about what comes next.

I'm looking forward to Dynamite to see what happens next, which hasn't really been the case for a while - it feels like the Death Riders break-up might finally happen there, we get a follow-up on Swerve, Hangman and Joe, and hopefully Eddie Kingston confronting Joe and Hook (with an outside chance of it being a ruse and Eddie joining The Opps, but I'm hoping it's not that), and the start of the Continental Classic. I assume Copeland and Christian return soon, filming schedule dependent, now that FTR have the titles. I'm interested in what's next for Mark Briscoe and Ricochet, and Kyle Fletcher declaring for the CC makes me optimistic that it's not just "Briscoe continues to feud with the Don Callis Family", although I'm not convinced Ricochet will be doing anything but continuing to wrestle the Hurt Syndicate. On top of all that, Chris Jericho's contract expires next month!

[DavidB6937]

7 minutes ago, Chris B said:

It feels like Hangman needed that reign-defining feud (in the way the Mox feud after Punk beat him would have been for his first one). But I also think it's maybe difficult to book a strong babyface champion in a storyline-focused way in the era of regular TV and matches. Beating everyone consistently isn't great, and it becomes a bit obvious when they're losing tag matches or non-title matches regularly - or even if they're just beaten down regularly but still super-Cena their way to victory. 

I don't think this was it, but I don't know if there was an it to be had at the moment. With TK obviously tending to have long-term plans, I wonder if we'll see some holding patterns beginning to break now. I could see us getting something of an odd-person faction of Hangman, Swerve, Eddie Kingston and Mox taking on Joe's lot, then the new Death Riders for a while. Which I wouldn't mind.

Babyface title reigns have been notoriously difficult to book over the years, but he got what.. just over 4 months I think? Of which there was two Joe matches, Kyle, MJF and Mox was it? I dunno, a lot of stuff is a blur in my head. But if that was all we got, it feels really fucking weak. 

Anyway, maybe it'll come out that he suggested dropping the belt himself because he's a lovely man and wants to dedicate more time to flowers or something, and then I'll just have to forgive him.