Violent & Bloody AEW Matches That Made Us SICK!

2. Kenny Omega Vs. Joey Janela - Dark, October 15 2019

Jon Moxley
Scott Lesh

Kenny Omega thinks more deeply about his craft than any other wrestler.

Sorry for the bathos here, because it seems to not be very thoughtful at all, but sometimes, the most inspired ideas are very simple, and on of all thing an episode of Dark, Omega took a bump on the underside of a table. The visual and noise of his upper body colliding with the flat metal legs was grotesque.

Now, if you think about it, the surface area aspect notwithstanding, this wasn't all too dissimilar to a wrestler taking a chair over the back, which tends to happen on every single episode of mainstream US television wrestling - but it was so novel that it looked and somehow felt more painful than it perhaps was in reality.

The match wasn't especially deep nor intricate. A simple back-and-forth duel designed for the Omega character to train himself in Jon Moxley's specialist genre - each had defeated Janela under the same stipulation, rendering the Full Gear Lights Out match more unpredictable - this was still notable for the sheer "That must have absolutely sucked to take" factor.

Built around executing spots on narrow blunt objects - like the upright row of chairs pictured above - Omega and Janela might as well have taken turns bumping on a roadside curb for 26 minutes. Gross and a bit wasteful, since it should have happened on Dynamite, but intoxicating all the same.

On the subject of Full Gear 2019...

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!