AEW Full Gear 2021

AEW Full Gear 2021

Minneapolis, MN - November 2021

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, the AEW World Champion was Kenny Omega, the TNT Champion was Sammy Guevara, the AEW World Tag Team Champions were the Lucha Brothers, and Dr. Britt Baker was the AEW Women's World Champion. 

Full Gear 2021 kicks off with MJF taking on Darby Allin. The story coming into this match was that MJF believed he could outwrestle Allin and, notably, defeat him with a "headlock takedown." Allin was also the only one of the Four Pillars of AEW (as named by MJF, which included himself, Sammy Guevara, and Jungle Boy) that MJF had not yet defeated. Excellent start to this match with MJF and Allin doing a ton of cool mirror work and showing off their athleticism. Allin and MJF have tremendous chemistry and it shows throughout the contest. Highlights included MJF hitting a tombstone piledriver on the apron, Darby's Code Red, and the heat MJF got avoiding the Coffin Drop. Speaking of the Coffin Drop...I wasn't a fan of the Coffin Drop on the floor. JR tried to save it by saying that MJF was trying to "block" the move, but it was very clear that he was catching Allin (and probably because Allin miscalculated a bit and looked like he was about to land tailbone-first on the concrete). I also didn't quite understand the Sting/Wardlow/Shawn Spears stuff happening outside of the ring as Sting had been there for Darby's entrance, wandered back backstage, and only came out once Wardlow and Spears showed up (which made me wonder why he hadn't just "stood guard" the whole time), all of which happened mostly off-camera. MJF got the cheap finish by decking Darby with the Dynamite Diamond Ring and then rolling him up with a headlock takedown (as promised), but Darby's shoulders were nowhere near the mat for the cover, which was a sloppy end. I think some of those moments keep this one from being "must watch," but it was certainly very good. (3.5/5)

The AEW World Tag Team Champions - The Lucha Bros (Rey Fenix and Penta) - defended their titles against FTR in the next match. Not everything went perfect in this match, but there was so much good work that it certainly outweighed some of the sloppy moments. Unfortunately, what really hurt this match was the abhorrent, confusing, dumb finish. Some of the highlights included Rey Fenix's (Rey Fenix'?) awesome hot tag, Fenix bouncing off of Penta (who was in the midst of delivering a piledriver to one half of FTR) and landing on the other half of FTR, the heels doing a ton of detail work that often gets overlooked in a tag match (including making sure to always knock out the corner guy or distract the ref before doing a double-team). As noted earlier, the finish was where this match went from being really good to hard-to-recommend. Excalibur tried his best to sell what was going on via commentary - that FTR had put on masks so that they could somehow trick the Lucha Bros into making a cover on the "illegal" man and then, once the ref realized the error, they could use the element of surprise to get the W - but none of this occurred and, instead, it came across like Wheeler willingly ate the Lucha Bros' finish and took the loss. It made very little sense and fell flat (as evidence by the red hot crowd giving it a very mild reaction). There was too much good work to say that this was even "average," but the ending took most of the enjoyment of this match away. (3/5)

Miro vs. Bryan Danielson in the finals of a tournament to determine the number one contender for the AEW World Championship was next. One reason why Danielson is considered such a great wrestler is because of how high his "basement" is. This match probably wouldn't even rank in the top 30 matches of his career, but even your "average" Danielson match is going to have some great, tight, hard-hitting work in it. Miro brought his A-game too. The finish was clunky as Danielson seemed to be attempting to do a tornado DDT off the top right into a guillotine frontface choke to put Miro out but it ended up looking like Miro landed awkwardly on the front of his body (not his head) and then positioned himself so that Danielson could apply the choke and the ref could call it immediately. At close to 20 minutes, I wanted that finishing stretch to be more outstanding than it was. (3/5)

The Young Bucks teamed with Adam Cole to take on Christian, Jack Perry, and Luchasaurus (now Killswitch) in a Falls Count Anywhere match. I like how Christian and Perry showed up in blue jeans, though nobody else doing so didn't make much sense to me (instead, the Bucks and Cole had matching Bret Hart-inspired pink gear). This match also went about 20 minutes, but felt like much longer because of how much shit they put into it. Highlights included Jack Perry getting thumbtacks stuffed into his mouth and then superkicked by the Bucks, Christian flying off a balcony with a crossbody onto Nick Jackson, Adam Cole getting some "color," and the match ending with one of the Bucks getting Con-Chair-To'd by Jungle Boy. Lowlights included Adam Cole hitting a Panama Sunrise (a move I hate to begin with) on the ramp (which has no "give" to make the move remotely believable) and the Bucks and Cole wearing thumbtack-covered kneepads to hit a BTE Trigger on the only guy in the match who wears a mask (which kinda made the thumbtacks pointless). Not really my kind of match, but good for what it was, which was an overlong, weapons-loaded spotfest. (3/5)

Malachi Black and Andrade El Idolo took on PAC and Cody Rhodes in the next match. The crowd was not at all into Cody, booing him throughout the contest. PAC and Andrade had already worked extensively with each other in the build-up to this match so its no surprise that their segments together are the best of the match. Cody gets taken out for a lengthy amount of time after a Malachi spin kick, leading to PAC working as the face-in-peril for a stretch. This was definitely smarter than having Cody garner any sympathy because he was treated as more of a heel than anyone else in this match. Move-for-move, minute-for-minute, this match isn't bad at all, but its an odd match that tries to tell a story - that neither team is capable of trusting each other - while also delivering a high workrate "epic" (the match goes nearly 20 minutes). It ends up overstaying its welcome and not even really delivering much in character development as none of the in-fighting leads to the finish. (2.5/5)

Dr. Britt Baker defended her AEW Women's Championship against Tay Conti in the next match. I did not go into this match thinking it would be very good, but they exceeded expectations and delivered a surprisingly strong, if not a bit overly long and senselessly overwrought, title fight. While the match went nearly as long as the previous bout, it was a much more exciting watch (even if the finish was never really in question). There were moments that were awkward - neither Baker nor Conti are the smoothest on the mat - but also moments that blew me away, such as Conti's trifecta of big boots to the corner and Baker hitting an Air Raid Crash (Celtic Cross) on the apron. Solid match. (3/5)

Eddie Kingston vs. CM Punk followed. Great opening with Kingston hitting CM Punk with an Awesome Kong backfist before the bell. The crowd wasn't 50/50, but there was a noticeable amount of fans backing Eddie despite him clearly being the antagonist during the match, attacking before the bell, then biting him, and then opening up Punk's forehead by sending him into the steps. I don't think either man gave a less-than-strong effort and I think they went out and did exactly what they planned (a short, intense match that didn't overstay its welcome like some of the other matches on this card), but at just 11 minutes, the match seemed a bit too short to be considered truly great and I'm surprised it has such a monster rating on Cagematch. (3/5)

A Minneapolis street fight followed as Dan Lambert and his team, consisting of Ethan Page, Scorpio Sky, Junior Dos Santos, and Andrei Arlovski took on the Inner Circle - Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Ortiz, Santana, and Jake Hager. As noted in the review above of Punk/Kingston, some matches don't need 20 minutes of airtime and this one certainly didn't. The match began as a straight-up, standard 5-on-5 match for no real reason before devolving into a weapons-loaded streetfight. The best spot of the match was Guevara hitting a senton from the top of a very, very high ladder through a table (and it looked like he basically landed on his tailbone). Arlovski and Dos Santos were "hidden" in plain sight because neither were really capable of any sort of extended wrestling sequence. Page and Sky did most of the "work" for their side, which meant lengthy stretches where they were eating offense and everyone else on their side sold on the outside. (2/5)

Main event time - Kenny Omega defending the AEW World Championship against "Hangman" Adam Page. This was a culmination of a lengthy, lengthy program and the crowd was absolutely hyped for it. Watching it years later, though, I was a touch underwhelmed. This is not to say that it wasn't a very good match, but admittedly, I didn't have the emotional investment in this match that it had from those who were following AEW from the start (which helps explain why this match has a massive 9.27 rating on Cagematch and earned 5.5 stars from Meltzer). This match is engaging for its full 25-minute runtime but didn't necessarily have any true "holy shit/I've never seen that before" sequences or moves. When we did get an incredible move (for example, Omega busting out an incredible back suplex-brainbuster), it was undersold or didn't lead to any real change in the match's "temperature" (Omega's back suplex-brainbuster was followed, immediately, by the same move from Hangman). Storyline-wise, I understood why the Bucks showed up at the end, but I didn't care for the added melodrama (again, maybe I'm missing something because I didn't follow every single beat of the storyline). Don Callis selling on the apron for minutes on end from a punch was distracting. No worse than very, very good, but not a match that I would consider an all-time masterpiece. (3.5/5)

With an overall rating of 2.94-out-of-5, Full Gear 2021 may not have the same "peaks" as some of AEW's other offerings, but it makes up for it with generally above-average consistency. The only real stinkers are the streetfight and the Cody tag, both of which ran a touch too long but still contained plenty of good, inspired action. Baker and Conti overdelivered, MJF and Darby Allin had a heck of an opener, and while I wouldn't consider Omega/Page "must see" in 2025 compared to both men's better AEW matches later on, its still something I'd consider "essential viewing" if you're trying to get a full picture of Hangman's arc as a character and the history of AEW as a promotion. 

FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand