AEW FEUD TRACKER: Key surprising developments at Full Gear including the men’s and women’s world titles, The Bucks made a decision about Kenny and Callis, Callis family tension
SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…
INTRO
A very surprising Full Gear is behind us and the Continental Classic is here. The annual round robin tournament kicks off tonight as things in AEW are at a tumultuous time.
There’s an unexpected new champion, The Most Dangerous Man in AEW is back, AEW’s OG faction are back together, and The Death Riders are at an inflection point. Kris Statlander looks for her next challenger as the Women’s Tag Team Title tournament cruises on. Tonight, let’s stuff our faces with wrestling before stuffing with turkey and sweet potato pie tomorrow.
I’d like to take a moment to express my gratitude to everyone for reading my column this year and wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings.
The End is Near
Latest Developments
Jon Moxley once again tapped out to a Kyle O’Reilly ankle lock almost certainly ending his reign as leader of the Death Riders.
Analysis
In this column last week I said that I wished KOR vs. Mox was a submission match instead of no holds barred. Turns out that’s exactly what I got. Mox and O’Reilly perfectly blended mat based submission wrestling with a violent edge that made for a very unique match. Your mileage may vary on the Abdullah the Butcher-esque fork spots, but I wasn’t bothered by them. I thought they added just enough violence without introducing other weapons, especially considering the match that followed. Shout out to Bryan Danielson for pointing out that the origin of no holds barred matches had to do with illegal wrestling holds and not steel chairs or kendo sticks.
The submission wrestling was great. Kyle bringing out the chain, which has been Mox’s Achilles heel, was a nice touch. Mox Pillman-izing KOR’s arm with a chair created a nice sense of peril and made KOR gritting it out and cranking on the ankle lock in spite of the pain even better.
Mox has now tapped out for the fourth time in four months and second time inside ten days. His credibility as leader of the Death Riders is shot. That was never more apparent than in the post-match promo posted to social media. Mox was ranting about nobody in AEW being ready and that it’s playoff season. The whole time the rest of the Death Riders were standing behind him staring a hole through him. The Praetorian Guard is about to take out the emperor.
Once that happens, Pac will ascend the throne. He’s been stepping up in recent weeks. He beat Darby, albeit after nailing Darby in the face with Sting’s baseball bat while Wheeler Yuta had the ref distracted. Pac’s more maniacal, nihilistic approach will give the Death Riders better direction than Mox’s warped savior complex.
Grade: B+
The Big One Remains Elusive
Latest Developments
Kris Statlander finally defeated Mercedes Moné clean with Staturday Night Fever to retain the AEW Women’s World Title; Toni Storm & Mina Shirakawa won the right to choose the stipulation in their semi-final match against Megan Bayne & Marina Shafir.
Analysis
The Kris Statlander vs. Mercedes Moné had a great match only hampered by its placement late on a long card. I really enjoyed the classic psychology of Mercedes working over Stat’s arm after the champion injured on a nasty missed Area 451 splash. Mercedes pulled out some innovative techniques to torque Stat’s arm and Stat sold the injury like a pro. At one point she gator-rolled Mercedes into position for the Staturday Night Fever because she couldn’t use her arm. In the end, she was able to reverse an attempt of Mercedes to drive into the turnbuckle and spike her with the modified tombstone for the win.
After failing twice last year, Stat finally defeated Mercedes, becoming only the third person to pin her since May of 2023. Stat has now beaten Toni Storm and Mercedes Moné in consecutive months. That’s one hell of a vote of confidence. Statlander looks great, and her wrestling ability is not in question. If she could just find a sweet spot with her promos, something to help her better engage the crowd, she could have a very successful run. There are plenty of heels to challenge her, so she won’t have a shortage of viable opponents.
Mercedes, on the other hand ,continues to struggle to win the “Big One” despite having won 13 other titles from all over the world. It’s an interesting story to tell. Does Mercedes go collect more titles from other countries to soothe this loss? Will she have to crash and burn and lose all of her other belts before she can finally claim the prize that continues to elude her? It all remains to be seen. In the meantime, it would be nice if she had a meaningful feud with say, Jamie Hayter, for the TBS Title. She is still the TBS Champion, after all.
Elsewhere, Toni Storm & Mina Shirakawa won the right to pick the stipulation in their semifinal match against Megan Bayne & Marina when Toni pinned Harley Cameron with the Big Package. The match was fine. It just felt needless and random. The idea of having a stipulation in a semi-final match feels anyway. It comes across as an excuse to have had the match on the PPV when they could’ve just put one of the semifinal matches on there. Nonetheless, I am curious to see what stip the Timeless Love Bombs come up with.
Meanwhile, the Babes of Wrath will fight the Sisters of Sin in the first semi-final match tonight. In my mind, the outcome of this match directly informs the outcome of the second match. If the heels win this one, the faces have to win the other. Picking an overall winner is still a crap shoot and I like that. I’d say one of the heel teams is more likely to win and that the Babes of Wrath have the lowest probability of winning.
Grade: B
Trust the Process
Latest Developments
In a moment that nobody saw coming, Samoa Joe defeated “Hangman” Adam Page for the AEW Men’s World Title after Hook turned heel and rejoined The Opps. After the match, Swerve Strickland made his return to AEW following a several month injury layoff.
Analysis
The match between Hangman and Joe was bloody and violent. Joe came up gushing after slamming his head into the cage early in the match. These two beat the hell out of each other. Hangman ended up busted open, too. At one point Shibata ran down and attempted to scale the cage only to be pulled down by Eddie Kingston. Amidst this, the ref got slammed into the cage. Hobbs came down and simply ripped the chain off the door with his bare hands. He brought the title belt into the ring, but walked right into Hangman who quickly dispatched him.
Hangman caught Joe with the Buckshot Lariat, but the ref was still down. That’s when Hook jogged down to the ring. He weakly attempted to wake the ref, then reached down, grabbed the belt, and clobbered Hangman with it. Joe picked up Hangman’s limp body, placed him on the top rope, and hit him with the Muscle Buster for the 1-2-3.
There’s a lot to unpack here. This match had a lot of blood. It made sense because it was a cage match. I would’ve cut blood from the Mox-KOR match.
As far as the interference goes, that caused a lot of consternation with the Wade Kellers and Todd Martins of the world. I get wanting to maintain the integrity of the cage match. I think the better idea would’ve been for Hook to come and cut Hobbs off from getting into the cage as soon as he snapped the chain. Hobbs can shove him out the way and attempt to get in the cage only for Hangman to cut him off. That’s when Hook could’ve turned and slammed the cage door on Hangman’s head. This way the integrity of the cage would be protected and Hook could still turn heel because I think that turn will be beneficial for him.
Obviously, the major issue at hand here is Hangman losing the title to Joe four months into his reign. The criticism of this decision has been widespread, from wrestling analysts to social media. To me, I think it’s an admission by Tony Khan that he didn’t have enough heels sufficiently lined up to fight Hangman post-MJF. That’s undoubtedly a failure on his part. I don’t, however, think this decision was kneejerk or hastily made.
I think Tony wanted to enliven the title picture by setting a babyface to chase the title which is normally compelling television. That’s why Joe was turned heel seemingly out of the blue last month. Revisiting the Swerve-Hangman-Joe story from last year with the dynamics between the three drastically different could make for some interesting storytelling.
Just the visual of Swerve and Hangman, the bitterest of rivals turned allies, standing side-by-side was a striking visual to close the show. Hangman losing the title this soon isn’t my favorite thing, but at least he’s staying at the tippy top of the company.
Grade: C+
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
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Callis Family Feud
Latest Developments
The Don Callis Family had a terrible night at Full Gear. The inability of Okada and Takeshita to get along prevented them and Hechicero from capturing the CMLL World Trios Titles. Kyle Fletcher lost the TNT Title to Mark Briscoe after a bloody war. While the DCF won the million dollar six-man tag match, the Young Bucks ultimately chose friendship over money, reuniting with Kenny Omega after saving him from The Family.
Analysis
The CMLL World Trios Title match was fun. It bled over from the end of the Tailgate Brawl pre-show. While that was novel last month, it could get really old if they do it every time, so I would refrain for a couple PPVs. The story of the match was Okada arriving late and the bickering between him and Okada. At one point, Okada accidentally but un-remorsefully hit Takeshita with a Rainmaker again. In the end, they both ended up on the floor squabbling while Hechicero was caught in a La Mistica and tapped out.
Kyle Fletcher and Mark Briscoe had an absolute war for the TNT Title. The match featured everything from chairs, to thumbtacks, to barbed wire tables, to Callis trademark screwdriver. Both men bled profusely. Fletcher looked like had Briscoe beat a few times, but in the end Briscoe hit a Razor’s Edge from the second rope through a barbed wire table followed by a Jay Driller to pull off the surprising win.
I say surprising because I fully expected Briscoe to lose and be in the DCF for a few months against his will. Instead, he’s now the TNT Champion and it looks like Fletcher is being elevated as he and Takeshita both declared for the Continental Classic later in the night.
The match between Josh Alexander & The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega & The Jurassic Express was exactly what you’d expect. There was constant action and high flying. Nick Jackson splatted on the floor early when Luchasaurus was out of position for a dive, but he seemed no worse for the wear. The Bucks ended up picking up the win on Jack Perry after a BTE Trigger.
That’s when the real story kicked in. The rest of the DCF hit the ring and attacked Kenny as Callis lead the Bucks up the ramp with sacks of prize money in hand. The Bucks looked visibly uncomfortable as they have every time the DCF have attacked Kenny in recent weeks. Callis tried to placate them, reminding them of the money they had just won as the crowd showered them with chants of “You sold out!”
Finally, the Bucks could take no more. They threw down the money bags and raced to the ring quickly clearing it of The Family. They shook hands with the Jurassic Express before extending their hands to Kenny. Kenny refused the handshake, opting instead for a hug. The band is officially back together, much to Callis’s dismay. The only thing missing was “Carry On Wayward Son” playing.
I thought this worked well. Yes, the Bucks have clearly wanted nothing to do with Callis, but they did need money so thought it was smart to make more about them choosing between their cut of a million dollars and their friendship with Kenny. Now the reunited Elite can do battle with The Don Callis Family and at some point challenge The Opps for the AEW Trios Titles. Maybe “Hangman” Page, the Neil Young to the Bucks and Omega’s Crosby, Stills, and Nash can rejoin the group and the entire band can ride again
Grade: B
