The true standard-bearer
Full Gear has quietly become the most consistent pay-per-view in the All Elite Wrestling rotation. While Double or Nothing carries the prestige of the inaugural event, Full Gear serves as the true year-end climax where storylines move from simmer to boil. It lacks the experimental feel of Revolution and the corporate sheen of All In.
Instead, we get the grit. This is where the company decides who carries the promotion into the next calendar year.
Defining the main event standard
The 2019 opener between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley in an unsanctioned lights-out match set a dangerous bar. They utilized a glass-covered ring, barbed wire, and trash cans to tell a story of pure, unadulterated hatred. It was a chaotic spectacle that proved AEW was willing to go further than the competition.
Then there was the Hangman Page versus Kenny Omega saga at the 2021 iteration. It was the best long-term storytelling in modern wrestling history. Watching Page hit the Buckshot Lariat to secure the title after two years of emotional baggage felt like a genuine shift in the power dynamic. It was the moment the company finally graduated from its start-up phase.
The flaws in the armor
Not every year has been a home run. The 2020 show suffered from a mid-card malaise where matches felt like filler rather than progression. The booking of the women’s division during the early years of this event was often an afterthought, relegated to the pre-show or sandwiched between heavy-hitting main events. It was a glaring oversight for a company that promised a different approach to presentation.
We also have to talk about the 2022 main event. While Jon Moxley and MJF provided a solid contest, the interference by William Regal felt like a pivot that went nowhere. It was a rare instance where the finish felt like it was written on a napkin five minutes before the bell. It remains a blemish on an otherwise stellar track record for the show's closing bouts.
Why the show works
The success of Full Gear comes down to the pacing of the card. Unlike the bloated four-hour marathons that plague other promotions, Full Gear usually finds the sweet spot between high-workrate athleticism and narrative payoff. The 2023 encounter between Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page in a Texas Death Match proved that the company still knows how to escalate violence to serve a personal feud.
Swerve’s rise to the top was cemented in that ring with a 30-minute masterclass of brutality. It was the kind of match that forces you to respect the dedication of the talent. If you look at the match history, you see a consistent investment in high-stakes stipulations that actually mean something for the characters involved.
Full Gear is the one time a year where the company stops trying to impress the critics and just leans into being a wrestling show. It is the perfect distillation of the Tony Khan booking philosophy: give the fans a long-term payoff, add a few reckless bumps, and finish with a definitive victory. When it hits, it hits harder than anything else on the market.
