While the state of the world is ever-changing and 2020 especially feels insanely tumultuous, if there has been one constant, it has been the consistency of All Elite Wrestling's athletes as they continue to bring the premiere performances in the realm of combat sports to FITE viewers across the globe.
Fans internationally will all converge live on FITE on Saturday November 7th as AEW presents Full Gear 2020 live from Jacksonville, Florida at Daily's Place, witnessing the climax of 2020 as AEW's rivalries and championships will hang in the balance in a series of high-octane wars.
Scheduled for Full Gear
AEW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP I QUIT MATCH - Jon Moxley vs. Eddie Kingston
In the world of All Elite Wrestling, the World Championship is the ultimate prize, the pinnacle that every single competitor that steps inside the squared circle dreams of achieving. For Jon Moxley, that dream manifested at AEW Revolution and since then, the grimy brawler has taken on all comers, retaining his place at the top of the All Elite Mountain. For decades, Eddie Kingston the chance to unseat Moxley and reign supreme as the best in the world would top all the broken bones, hard fought victories and unrelenting mayhem that have defined his career. After failing to win a Battle Royal to become the top contender, Kingston claimed he wasn't actually thrown out. When he was given the opportunity to challenge Moxley, Kingston nearly unseated the champion but in the end, fell short.
From that moment on, Kingston, who was already teetering on the edge of sanity, took the plunge into darkness. Challenging Moxley to an I Quit Match, Kingston has been obsessed since the match was made official, beating opponents into unconsciousness while screaming at them as if they, indeed, were Jon Moxley. While Moxley, himself a combatant well versed in all aspects of hardcore warfare, has been training hard and swearing that no one will take the belt from him, one has to wonder who will be left standing tall when the battlefield clears.
Kingston, like Moxley, is an enigma who cannot be planned for...so what happens when two loose cannons run amuck with no rules, except the only way for the match to end is for one competitor to give up and acquiesce that the other fighter is better? How does one let someone they don't respect stand tall as the better man, especially when these are competitors who have a threshold for pain and violence that is unmatched? Moxley and Kingston are going to go Full Gear, one on one, and no one in the vicinity will be safe.
THE WORLD TITLE ELIMINATOR TOURNAMENT FINALS - Kenny Omega vs. Adam Hangman Page
For weeks, fans across the globe have watched with great intensity to see who would survive the World Title Eliminator Tournament, setting the stage for the next challenger following Full Gear. What no one could have predicted when the first round was announced, was that former AEW World Tag Team Champions Adam "Hangman" Page and "The Cleaner" Kenny Omega would be facing off in the finals for a grudge match that will also set the stage for the next chapter of AEW history.
For each fighter, this is a bout they cannot win. The hard drinking, hard fighting Adam Page has been trying to put his career and life together after expulsion from The Elite and a win would exorcise the ghosts that have haunted him over the last year. For Omega, who has reverted back to his New Japan Pro Wrestling persona, The Cleaner, the win would be an exclamation mark that he has resumed his former position as the competitor that set the stage for everyone else in the industry.
Of course, the elephant in the room is this - Omega and Page have been at odds since losing the Tag Team Championship to FTR, leading to a massive split between the two. With heightening tensions between the two, Full Gear will be the epicenter for not just the end of the Eliminator, not just the future trajectory of the AEW World title but indeed a nuclear explosion of hatred and anger between two competitors in the prime of their careers who have everything to win and lose.
TNT CHAMPIONSHIP - Cody vs. Darby Allin
Since regaining the TNT title from Mr. Brodie Lee, Cody has battled across the spectrum of All Elite Wrestling, bringing the title back to the pristine heights of his initial title reign. At Full Gear, the second-generation superstar attempts to do that yet again, facing a rival from his past in AEW, Darby Allin.
Allin, the adrenaline junkie who has wowed fans and pundits alike with his all out courage inside and beyond the ring, has never scored a win over Cody, but the champion has never defeated Allin, either. They went to a legendary time limit draw in the past during AEW's first year and since then, their exploits have taken them on divergent paths against the likes of The Dark Order and Team Taz and through their victories in those wars, all roads have led them back to each other at Full Gear.
For Allin, a win allows him to ascend to the upper echelon of AEW, somewhere his fans believe he already should be. For Cody, it's a chance to prove his greatness one more time while also erasing one of the few asterisks in his record book. While the mutual respect for the other remains, at their heart, these competitors want to have their hand raised and will do anything to insure that victory.
AEW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP: FTR vs. The Young Bucks
For years, fans have debated who truly is the best tag team in the world. Words were exchanged via social media. Threats were issued and challenges were tossed out, but no one genuinely believed The Young Bucks and FTR would truly face off in battle...until FTR shocked the world by emerging in All Elite Wrestling.
Since coming to AEW, FTR have captured the World Tag Team Championship and under the tutelage of the legendary Tully Blanchard, they have stretched and out-wrestled every team that has stepped up to the plate. But, they've never faced anyone quite like the synchronized aerial assault machines that are Nick and Matt Jackson. The Bucks have revolutionized tag team wrestling, but despite their pioneering nature as founding fathers of All Elite Wrestling, they have yet to taste tag team gold.
While FTW quickly found a path to the AEW World Tag Team Titles, partially via manipulation of a number of other competitors, including the Bucks' former friend Adam Page, this enraged The Bucks. The normally well mannered Bucks have let their tempers get the better of them, throwing superkicks faster than they could pay the fines for assaulting officials. Admitting they were not proud of their actions in recent weeks, The Bucks went as far as to declare that if they couldn't defeat FTR, they would never challenge for the belts ever again.
Up against a wall, The Young Bucks step into what had initially been touted as a dream match, but at Full Gear, they seek to wake up from what has been a never-ending Nightmare on Elite Street.
THE ELITE DELETION - Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara - Elite Deletion Match
For months, Sammy Guevara has been recklessly harassing and attacking beloved veteran Matt Hardy and at Full Gear, the self-proclaimed Spanish God may find himself on the wrong end of a truly Broken Experience. Where Guevara and Hardy's previous battles have taken place on a traditional battlefield, there is nothing quite like the spooky and supernatural confines of the Hardy Compound, where souls are lost and resurrected and Hardy's many followers lurk in every crevice and cavity of the grounds. While Guevara has proven to be able to injure Hardy in the past, he has not broken Hardy's spirit and indeed, just days after Halloween, it may be Guevara who finds his soul lost and his spirit shattered. With no rules and shifting landscape, the Hardy vs. Guevara rivalry ends in the first-ever Elite Deletion Match!
AEW WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP- Hikaru Shida vs. Nyla Rose.
One of the most emotional moments of Hikaru Shida's career saw the Japanese star triumph over The Native Beast Nyla Rose to capture the AEW World Women's Championship at Double or Nothing. Since that time, Rosa has enlisted the help of Vickie Guerrero as her manager and has torn through all competitors facing her inside the squared circle while demanding her rematch. While Shida built a shining championship reign over the last several months, taking down all challengers, the question remained whether she could survive another onslaught from Nyla Rosa. Finally, Shida accepted the challenge, declaring she would face Rosa at Full Gear. On one side, the best women's wrestler in the world and on the other, an angry former champion seeking vengeance and redemption. This is what epitomized greatness in professional wrestling and the explosion will happen live on FITE.
A MOMENT WILL BE MADE - MJF vs. Chris Jericho
For months, former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho and the obnoxiously arrogant MJF have been circling each other's orbit, a bromance the likes of which has never been seen in All Elite Wrestling. Whether it be trying to one-up the other before breaking into a song and dance number that melted the Internet or glaring angrily at the other before cracking smiles, it's impossible to tell whether they are ready to tag team or go for the other's throat. For the rest of the Inner Circle, this relationship has grown more and more troublesome, as they feel MJF's interest in joining AEW's most explosive faction will only lead to the group being compromised. Unmoved by his bretheren's concerns, Jericho has laid out the ultimate challenge for MJF when questioned what more needed to be done to guarantee his entrance into The Inner Circle - beat Chris Jericho inside the ring. Should MJF accomplish that fear, he will taste the rarified air of Inner Circle membership. If he fails to do so, the door is shut forever and MJF and his bodyguard Wardlow will be seeking another path to glory. Can one of the best of all time defeat one of AEW's fastest rising antagonists or will Chris Jericho find himself lap[ped by the 21st Century version of himself?
THE BUY IN - John Silver vs. Orange Cassidy
Orange Cassidy is coming off the biggest moments of his career, including a major victory over Chris Jericho in the first-ever Mimosa Mayhem match as well as several bouts against TNT Champion Cody where he took the leader of The Nightmare Family to the limit, but after failing to unseat Cody, even someone as casual towards his in-ring exploits has to be aware he needs a big win to rebound upwards in the AEW Win-Loss Records. At Full Gear, Cassidy hopes to score the win, but to do so, he's going to have to surpass John Silver, one of The Dark Order's shining knights when it comes to decimation and all out victory. As Silver continues to break out of his gregarious shell, he has notched a series of impressive wins while proving to be one of the most dangerous weapons in the Dark Order's arsenal. Only FITE viewers tuning into the Buy will see who is victorious live.
Strap up and hit the field! AEW Full Gear will go down live
Mike Johnson is the lead reporter for PWInsider.com and has been writing about professional wrestling since 1996. He can be found on Twitter @MikePWInsider and MikeJohnsonWrites.com.
