AEW’S TOP MATCHES OF THE WEEK – Even though I really hated a lot about AEW Full Gear, here are three matches that earned praise

To say I wasn’t a fan of Full Gear would be an understatement. I think this may have been my least favorite PPV that AEW has ever put on. There were some good wrestling matches on this PPV, though. “Wrestling” being the key word in that last sentence.

“Hangman” Adam Page vs. Samoa Joe was the FIFTH match in ten days that featured people bleeding buckets of blood. I’m sorry, but after watching Jon Moxley and Kyle O’Reilly stab each other over and over with a fork, I’m not exactly aghast then at Samoa Joe bleeding from hitting his head on a steel cage in the main event. I’m good with the fork spot for a while. I’m boycotting forks going forward. When I eat dinner tonight, it’ll be spoons only. The crazy thing is that I like blood in my wrestling when it makes sense and its not there to look “cool.”

By the time the main event came around – which I thought was awful – I was so ready for the PPV to just be over. Samoa Joe bleeding 5 minutes into the match was comical. I almost wish they had just pivoted and decided not to bleed. I would have respected that more. I also love a cage match where the people you are trying to keep out just easily get in to interfere. I mean, what’s the point?

Cutting short another Hangman title run is a mistake, in my opinion. I understand not wanting to run back another Swerve Strickland and Hangman match, but I feel there was a smarter way to do this than to just have Hook hit Hangman with a belt. This is more of a condemnation of Tony Khan’s booking of this Hangman title run more than anything. I understand your top stars are out, but you could have used this to build up another wrestler like a Ricochet to a main event talent by having him in a program with Hangman. I love Samoa Joe, but I have no interest in anther Joe title run.

I thought the main event was so bad that it diminished the return of Swerve a little bit. I wish they had called an audible and saved his return for Dynamite. They should have read the crowd better. I think this was a really good year for AEW and I feel like what they did in the main event was a mistake. It was like seeing a car crash on the highway and having no way to stop it.

My favorite match of the night was Kris Statlander vs. Mercedes Mone. I thought they both showed up and the match suffered from a crowd that was clearly worn out from the two gore fests before it – Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe and Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O’Reilly. I thought it was criminal to put this on after those two matches. Speaking of this match…

Mercedes Mone (TBS Champion and Some Other Belts) vs. Kris Statlander (AEW Women’s World Champion) – Full Gear

I thought the crowd was bad tonight from beginning to end of this show. Mercedes came out with what I thought was a little bit of extra swagger in her entrance and I thought it might have been a giveaway that she was winning. Well, I was wrong. I am a little bit surprised that Mercedes lost here.

I didn’t think the Statlander’ s title run had really taken off the way I thought it might have after her positive showings the first two weeks after her title reign on Dynamite. She had a great match with Mina Shirikawa and then followed that up with a great mixed tag team match where she teamed up with Wheeler Yuta. She is just too awkward on the mic. I thought her entrance tonight was also awkward. She just doesn’t have “It.”

With all that said, though, I thought this match was great and, as I mentioned before, was my favorite of the night. This may have more to do with my disdain for the amount of nonsensical blood on this PPV, but there were some really great spots in this match.

I loved Mercedes working Statlander’s injured arm/shoulder throughout the match, and I thought Statlander did a great job selling the injury throughout the match. Mercedes pulling off 14 suplexes (one for every belt… almost) was so impressive. The crowd barely got on their feet for her, though, which I found annoying. That was incredibly impressive by both Stalander and Mone.

The rib-breaker from Statlander to Mone was also impressive and Mone sold the hell out of it, as evidenced on the slow-motion replay they showed. There was a moment at the end of the match where they did a close up of Mercedes grabbing her hair while she was sitting down with just a look of agony on her face that she couldn’t put Statlander away. I hope that is a sign that we are going to get a spiraling Mercedes now. I hope that close up was a breadcrumb of where this is going.

Mercedes losing the TBS Title next is what needs to happen now. I’d have her lose it very soon. That title has done nothing for her and there is a roster full of women who could benefit from a TBS Title run. Thekla, Willow Nightingale, Megan Bayne, and Jamie Hayter all come to mind.

I’m not sure where they go with Statlander after this, but they can’t keep going with her the way it’s going. I know they are slow-burning this Moxley breakup with the Death Riders, but I’m really wishing now that Statlander had joined them.

Brodido (AEW Tag Team Champions) vs. FTR – Full Gear

I loved this match, but I did not love the ending. I felt like that with a couple of matches on the PPV, though. I think you still have something there with Brodido and I’m not sure taking the titles off them here is the right move considering the landscape of AEW right now. I guess my thought is where do Bandido and Brody King go from here?

Neither one of them is going into the world title scene and I don’t see either one of them going after the TNT Title. The Continental Classic seems like we already know the final is going to be Kazuchika Okada vs. Konosuke Takeshita, so I guess my main argument is why not keep the belts on them a little longer and keep a fan favorite on TV every week. I guess they might both be in the Continental Classic, but I’d rather watch them as a tag team for a little while longer than as singles competitors.

The pre-match video of Stokely Hathaway re-creating that scene from the movie “Belly” was so funny. What a ’90s throwback. (Knowing what he was doing in that video really made me feel old.) I could watch Brody King chop people all day, and I could watch him just lay forearms into people all day as well. The guy is a one man wrecking crew. He just annihilates people. It may not be a problem going forward, but no more Macarena teases mid-match. It’s enough already with that. Brody did it once already, so let’s move on.

There were a lot of great spots in this match that I loved and the Death Valley Driver by Brody King into the corner when he had Cash Wheeler on his shoulder and just slammed him into Dax Harwood in the corner was such a great spot. Bandido also had a one-handed overhead press of Cash Wheeler that I thought was awesome.

I think this match probably had like one or two too many false finishes, but when Cash Wheeler hit Bandido with the title I really thought that was the end of the match. They got me on that false-finish for sure. I also really liked Brody King catching Dax Harwood by the throat on the Power & Glory spot. I thought that was a cool visual and Dax really sold it with his facial expressions. Overall, I just thought this was a fun match and I wouldn’t mind them running it back again on an episode of Dynamite coming up so that Brodido can get a re-match.

Pac vs. Darby Allin – Full Gear

How is it possible that even when Darby Allin has a normal wrestling match, he somehow still makes it look like he’s going to come out of the match broken in half?

Darby took some insane bumps in this match and the overhead press by Pac to Darby when he slammed him off the ring apron to the floor was just brutal looking. People were talking about how hard Powerhouse Hobbs hit the floor last week in his match versus Hangman Page; Darby saw that and said, “Hold my beer.” He also looked like a human torpedo flying through the ring buckle, off the ringpost, and to the floor during one spot. I watch Darby’s matches with my hands on my face Kevin McAllister-style most of the time.

Pac ripping off Darby’s bandages to reveal his burns and then giving Darby an Indian burn by rubbing his burns with his hands was a real painful-looking spot. Darby also took a slingshot into the ropes in this one and his head snapped back so hard.

To be honest, after that bizarre pre-match video, I’m just glad Darby didn’t come to the ring with his face all bandaged up like the Invisible Man. Seriously, what the hell was that pre-match video?

I wasn’t a fan of the ending, but at the end of the day, it’s a heel doing a heel thing by asking for illegal outside interference. I thought Pac looked strong in this match and he’s been on an upward trajectory since his return. I thought the spot where he was just booting Darby in the face over and over in the corner of the ring really suited his character well. He’s here to cause pain and brutalize you. I did  like the crowd chanting “You can’t kill him!” to Pac about Darby. Darby Allin is turning into the Emo John Cena; he’s never going to give up.

Random Notes:

•My stomach turned when Kenny Omega came up limp during his Full Gear match. Luckily, it seems like he’s fine, but man did I get sick at the thought of him really injuring himself significantly again.

•I thought Swerve looked like a total star during his return, but I am really going to be bummed out if his new entrance music is what he is going to use going forward. It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that it’s not as good as the original. It’s a classic, and I hate messing with a classic entrance theme like that.

•My main takeaway from the Women’s four-way is that Toni Storm, Willow Nightingale, Megan Bayne, and Harley Cameron should be the focus of that division going forward.

•That was the worst Casino Gauntlet match of all time and the more it went on the angrier I got. That new title is already dead on arrival. Ricochet deserves better.

•You have had 29 TNT Title champions in six years. You were just about to have Kyle Fletcher complete his 12th defense and that would have been a record. You could have had him go on a serious run with that title and really build it back up to a meaningful title. I’m sorry Mark Briscoe winning was a mistake. You chose the moment over the commonsense move.

•Can you tell I really hated Full Gear?

•The Young Bucks had great gear at Full Gear. One of my all time favorites they’ve worn.