AEW Full Gear 2019

AEW Full Gear 2019

Baltimore, MD - November 2019

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, Chris Jericho was the AEW World Champion, Riho was the AEW Women's World Champion, and the AEW World Tag Team Champions were SCU (Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky). 

Full Gear 2019 kicks off with The Young Bucks taking on Proud-N-Powerful, aka Santana and Ortiz. This was a tad underwhelming to me with a few spots I really disliked. I disliked the way Ortiz sold a superkick by wiggling around like a dolphin. I disliked Santana biting the top rope for no real reason just to make a double superkick to the back of the head spot look more vicious (take out the biting and that spot would've been nasty enough). I liked the first Northern Lights Suplex that Matt Jackson hit on both Santana and Ortiz, but disliked him somehow having the power to roll through and do it again. I didn't find the "story" or narrative of the match to be all that interesting and while you know, with these guys, you are going to get some great double-team maneuvers and lots of action, there was one point where the match basically just stopped because Santana and Ortiz seemingly had no game plan. It was an odd hiccup in a match that had been, up till that point, pretty balls-to-the-wall. A touch overlong too, this match was not my cup of tea. The post-match, which saw the Rock n' Roll Express help the Bucks get some revenge against the heels (who had been joined by Sammy Guevara for a post-match attack on their beaten opponents), was a fun, crowd-pleasing moment. (2.5/5)

PAC and "Hangman" Adam Page did battle next. Page controlled early, but really, this was your "classic AEW" back-and-forth bombfest. I liked that they took some time between the big spots, but there was really no "story" to this match aside from both guys showing off all they could do. Like JR noted on commentary, I've often thought that Page's gimmick and style are at odds as you wouldn't expect a cowboy to do so much high-flying, but I've never been an expert on Adam Page's career and, ultimately, his execution is tremendous. PAC was his usual great self here too, though the cameras miss one of his better spots out of the corner. The crowd was a little quieter for this than I think they'd be for this sort of match today, but, at the time, neither guy hugely established with "mainstream" wrestling fans. A good, arguably great, match that suffered from a lack of heat and crowd engagement. (3/5)

Joey Janela, the "Bad Boy" of pro-wrestling, took on Shawn Spears in the next match. The story here was that Spears was trying to rid the wrestling landscape of "Garbage Wrestling," aka hardcore wrestling. Naturally, the story then should've been that Spears would use all sorts of ridiculous, cheap, behind-the-ref's back hardcore spots to win the match, bloodying Janela in the process. We get that...but only after 10 minutes of Janela proving that he can, in fact, wrestle. Unfortunately, being an average wrestler is not enough to get over on a show where the "basement level" of talent is so high. The same criticism can be made of Spears' performance as his stoic heel demeanor lead to underreactions when this match needed more "big" moments and panic. There were moments in this match that were good - Spears' hitting a huge bodyslam on Janela on the floor early, Spears tying up Janela's hair with the tag rope, the finishing spot (a spike piledriver on the floor from Spears with Tully Blanchard on the assist) - but this felt very "mid" as the kids say. (2/5)

The AEW World Tag Team Championships were on the line next as SCU (Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian) defended the titles against The Lucha Bros (Rey Fenix and Pentagon Jr.) and Private Party (Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen). When you put this many high-flyers in the ring, the goal is to get a really fast-paced, non-stop, "spot-heavy" match and they succeed in delivering that. However, its unclear who the crowd should be rooting for and rooting against and that lack of moral conflict or emotion ends up hurting this match and keeping it from being anything more than an "exhibition style" contest. The fact that the championships are on the line should add some drama, but none of the teams try to take a shortcut or bend the rules to capture them. Maybe in 2019 this sort of match would've felt like a breath of fresh air but in 2024, with matches like these being so common, its hard to consider this anything special. (2.5/5)

Emi Sakura challenged Riho for the AEW Womens' World Championship next. I really liked Sakura's Freddie Mercury-inspired cosplay and opera-singing. Really smart way to give the crowd a "hook" as I'm not sure how familiar the AEW fans were with her. The pinfall sequence towards the end was spectacular and the match may have benefitted from an opening that was as fast-paced rather than the more deliberate approach. JR got a bit tongue-tied at one point, a recurring thread on this show. I don't think its a lack of preparation as much as JR just not being the "wrestling nerd" one would need to be to provide the kind of color commentary he was shooting for as an "expert." In a sense, this is where someone like a Don West made more sense as enthusiasm and excitement for the action would've worked better than JR clearly being out of his wheelhouse. Anyway, commentary issues aside, from a workrate perspective, this might've been my match of the night up till this point as Sakura was really great with her character work throughout and I absolutely loved the way they built towards the multiple javelin stomp spots, which I usually loathe but actually felt organic and logical here (one of my biggest pet peeves is the way certain guys will position themselves to take these moves by holding themselves up on the ropes). (3/5)

Cody Rhodes challenged Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship in the next match. The storyline coming into this was that Rhodes would never challenge for the title again if he could not defeat Jericho. This was a very "sports-entertainment" heavy match with some good but not really remarkable back-and-forth for the first third, then a second third built around Cody face-planting on the steel entranceway and Jericho working over a cut on his forehead, and a final third where Rhodes made some inroads towards a comeback, Jake Hager got thrown out of the match for interference, and Jericho managed to apply his Walls of Jericho submission to lead to the finish (MJF throwing in the towel for Cody Rhodes). This went a touch too long for me and started a little too slow for me to consider this "must see." Jericho didn't embarrass himself here but I didn't see any greatness either. I liked MJF's turn after the match, especially him getting doused with water by an angry fan (plant?) as he made his exit. (3/5)

Main event time - Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega in a "Lights Out" match. The "Lights Out" stipulation means that this match was "unsanctioned" (but still had a referee) and "anything goes." They promised a wild hardcore match and this was definitely that. Mouse traps, shards of glass, an ice pick tease, a barbwire broom, a barbwire bat, a barbwire "bed" - it was all there. I'm a bigger fan of Omega when he's showing off his agility, speed, technique, and relentless energy, but he was clearly not afraid to work a "death match"-style contest here. Some of the spots were a bit too cutesy for me, such as Omega double-stomping a trash can on Moxley, but others were spectacular. I also really liked how the violence built up until the final few spots with the exposed ring, culminating in Omega basically diving full force onto the uncovered wood. To be honest, this match wasn't really blowing me away until its second half, but the second half is outrageously good. (4/5)

With a Kwang Score of 2.86-out-of-5, Full Gear 2019 was something of a disappointment to me. Jericho/Cody is long and dramatic, but its not particularly great, and really only the main event could be considered "must watch" if you're into death matches. Riho/Sakura is arguably the best "straight-up" match on the show while both tag matches are solid but not unremarkable.

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