10 All Out Mistakes AEW Can't Afford To Repeat At Full Gear

5. Excessive Danger

AEW Full Gear Set
AEW

Prior to and at All Out, Joey Janela and Jon Moxley juiced gushers to get the heat on Chris Jericho and MJF. Darby Allin raked thumbtacks over the back of Ricky Starks, scraping it to bits. To continue that angle, Ricky's Team Taz stablemate Brian Cage zipped Allin in a body bag filled with tacks and dropped him on his neck. Matt Hardy and Sammy Guevara, struggling to control their fall when manoeuvring around a narrow platform, missed the table positioned to break it. Hardy turned purple and was rushed to hospital.

AEW, in another bid to set itself apart as the alternative, is rated TV-14. All this, however, was excessive, diluted and dangerous booking that missed the very point of that rating: danger must be restrained to preserve its feeling.

Absolutely none of this resonated with the same heft of Dustin Rhodes bleeding out, or Kenny Omega nearly imploding his own face on an exposed board.

Scanning the card, AEW looks to have scaled back and adopted a more disciplined approach ahead of Full Gear. Jon Moxley Vs. Eddie Kingston is going to be barbaric, but with enough backstory and emotional heft to warrant the bloodbath. The stunts in the Elite Deletion will hopefully be more controlled.

Elsewhere, the card is mostly weighted towards grudge and competition to, one hopes, preserve the idea that this is mostly what AEW is about. And when it isn't, it's because the events of a story have spiralled into the realm of actual transgression, and not shlock.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!