AEW Full Gear is the first All Elite Wrestling PPV to take place since the inception of Dynamite. It’s a landmark occasion, and I’m taking a look at every match announced for the show, one by one. I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer and here’s what we’re looking forward to on Saturday!
Shawn Spears (w/ Tully Blanchard) vs. Joey Janela
This feud is younger than pretty much all the others, but an interesting one regardless. It started a few weeks ago with Janela putting a cigarette into the drink of Shawn Spears’ manager, Tully Blanchard. Obviously that didn’t sit well with them. This past week on AEW Dark, Tully and Spears retaliated, with Spears taking pliers to Joey’s mouth. It looked to me like they were taking his cigarette and burning the inside of his mouth with it, but apparently they were also attempting to rip out his tongue!
Then, on this past Wednesday’s Dynamite – the go-home show for AEW Full Gear – Janela ran out to save Brandon Cutler from a Spears post-match beatdown. A match between the two was set for the PPV shortly thereafter.
There’s a fun old school vs. hardcore subtext to this match.
Ahead of his match with Cutler, Shawn Spears was actually wearing a shirt that read ‘No More Garbage Wrestling’. This was a pretty clear shot at Janela, who loves his crazy stunts and violence. Unfortunately the build to this was short and didn’t exactly include any promos, so they couldn’t really play to this as much as they could. Of course, it may well continue past AEW Full Gear so there’s still time to get deeper into that aspect of it.
I do suspect it’ll play closely into the story of the match though. Expect to see Spears’ old school heel tactics matched with Janela’s wild risk taking. Should be an interesting one.
Joey Janela is a guy whose stock has risen slowly since his signing with AEW, becoming more legitimate little-by-little with impressive performances against Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega. Be it in brutal Unsanctioned matches or in straight-up wrestling bouts, Janela always seems to stand out. However, he doesn’t have anything resembling a signature win under his belt yet.
Shawn Spears of course made a lot of waves with his initial heel turn, bloodying Cody Rhodes back at Fyter Fest. They had a well-built and pretty fun match at All Out afterwards, but he ultimately lost and has been in a bit of a bounceback mode ever since.
Both of these guys could probably use a PPV win right about now.
That adds a fair bit of intrigue to this for me. It’s one of the bigger toss-ups on the card, as it seems like both men should be trending upwards and getting victories at this moment. It could really go either way, but if pressed, I’d say that Spears needs credibility a little more urgently right now. Janela can still make a story of getting his much sought after big win down the line, which is a much better angle for a babyface. So with that in mind, I pick Spears to go over.
AEW Full Gear takes place November 9th in Baltimore, Maryland out of the Royal Farms Arena. It airs live on traditional PPV in America and on FITETV internationally.
