AEW Full Gear 2021: 10 Things That Must Happen
Is Bryan Danielson about to outshine the new AEW World Champ at Full Gear 2021?
AEW's Full Gear 2020 happened just 12 months ago, but it feels like another lifetime.
Back then, Jon Moxley was riding high as World Champ and Eddie Kingston was in the challenger role; in the midcard, The Young Bucks were still babyfaces, Darby Allin dethroned Cody Rhodes to become TNT Champion and MJF was on the cusp of joining The Inner Circle.
Now, Mox is taking time out for personal reasons and Kenny Omega is AEW's main titleholder. That could change come Saturday night's pay-per-view though. There's a decent chance that Omega's unfulfilling heel run will come to an end, AEW will put their chips behind a popular baby again and all will be right with the world.
Then, they'll need to decide what's next.
Either Bryan Danielson or Miro (who replaced Moxley in the Eliminator tourney) will become the next number one contender. That's huge either way, but there's realistically only one outcome that most in the pro wrestling world want to see.
Full Gear will be quite the ride, that's for sure. Here's everything, including title changes and more, that must happen in Minneapolis.
10. The Street Fight Opens
Opening any pay-per-view is tough.
Fans need some sort of meaningful star power to launch things, but every card deserves a hot match to get it started too. Sadly, the American Top Team vs. Inner Circle feud has stuttered towards Full Gear - the MMA crew are largely bland and under-developed character-wise, and the main focus is on Chris Jericho making jokes.
AEW need to give this 'Minneapolis Street Fight' an erm...fighting chance come the weekend. The only way to do that is by kicking off Full Gear with a hard-hitting brawl that literally pulls no punches. Fans will pop hard for Jericho's music anyway, so that'll get things off on the right footing.
Then, the Top team and their Men Of The Year pals can come out all guns blazing and brawl, brawl, brawl. Screw anything fancy here. Just have everyone involved throw haymakers (and some potatoes if need be) to up the intensity and set the tone.