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!
The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs. Proud-N-Powerful (Santana & Ortiz)
A key battle between the Elite and the Inner Circle here. Santana and Ortiz have been referred to as being the hottest free agent tag team around ahead of their signing. This is not an exaggeration, this ain’t kayfabe. Formerly known as LAX in Impact, the second generation to the original famed pairing of Homicide & Hernandez, the two of them had created quite the buzz for themselves. When their contract expired, WWE wanted them pretty badly, if only to keep them away from AEW. They were arguably the focal point of the first ever bidding war between the two companies.
Suffice to say, it was pretty newsworthy when they jumped the Young Bucks at All Out in Chicago a little over two months ago. Little did we know at that point that they’d end up joining Chris Jericho, key pieces of a major stable to rival the mighty Elite. We’ve thus far seen some flashes of talent and brutality, shows of charisma, but not much in the way of big match action. They were only able to do so much in their hectic six-man tag debut, and only have a squash match win to their name since then.
This is the night where we see what all the hype was about.
Without a doubt, this is the biggest match of the young careers of Santana & Ortiz. They’ve never had a platform like this. And a little fun fact: these two tandems have only squared off in a straight-up 2-on-2 match once before… back on Jericho’s cruise last year. The cuts run deep, eh?
But yeah, this is the time for them to shine. The perfect chance to show the world exactly how good they are. We’ll see how they come off in there with what many consider to be hands down the top tag team in the world in Matt and Nick Jackson.
I’m sure in their heart of hearts, the Young Bucks want nothing more than to put the recently named Proud-N-Powerful over. They’ve seemingly begged to lose every big match they’ve had only to be vetoed, though they did manage to have Private Party upset them weeks ago. This mindset makes it easy to think there’s a real chance Santana & Ortiz go over here. But with that one exception aside, the Young Bucks have been protected pretty consistently. It took the Lucha Bros a number of tries to finally get a win over them, and I can’t help but think Proud-N-Powerful will see much the same. They’re in the kind of position where they don’t really need to win to elevate themselves anyhow. Young Bucks 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.
