AEW Full Gear 2023 will take place at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, California on Saturday, November 18, 2023. Follow along here for spoilers and information on the event's card, lineup of matches and news regarding the pay-per-view.
The following are my predictions for the 2023 AEW Full Gear. Check back for Full Gear 2023 results and review coverage here when the time comes.
AEW Full Gear 2023 Spoilers |
ROH World Tag Team Championship Match: MJF (c) and TBA vs. The Gunns
Without knowing MJF's partner, it's really hard to tell whether or not he'll be able to walk out of this event with all his titles. However, I can't imagine they're going to keep up this pace of having him wrestle twice per event, especially since Adam Cole is likely far off from returning to the ring to team with him. Eventually, you have to just cut the ROH tag title run and try to revisit it in another format down the line, or drop the story entirely. Clearly, this wasn't how AEW planned for any of this to go, but I've long thought The Gunns had a potential ROH tag title run in their future. Now may be the time to have something happen where the person in the devil mask is MJF's partner and screws him over, Austin and Colten walk out of the pre-show with the tag titles, and they make it seem like MJF is going to lose all his belts, only for him to retain the world title later in the main event.
Update after Dynamite: On second thought, maybe it isn't as clear-cut as having the belts change hands here. Maybe that will happen at ROH Final Battle, instead.
PREDICTION: MJF retains.
Trios Match: Sting, Darby Allin and Adam Copeland vs. Christian Cage, Luchasaurus and Nick Wayne
This is just a continuation of what we've seen, but at least Adam Copeland is involved to help spice it up and take on what I'd assume would be the majority of the match. Sting isn't going to lose with his retirement coming up in just a few months.
AEW Women's World Championship Match: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Toni Storm
Shida winning the title from Saraya was a shocker to me, as I thought it would go back to Toni Storm. As such, right when that happened, I thought to myself "Oh, I guess they'll just have Storm beat Shida, then." I'm sticking to that. They're clearly enjoying Storm's character quite a bit, and I fully expect her to be the champion once more after this match.
AEW World Championship Match: MJF (c) vs. Jay White
There's no telling what Tony Khan had in mind for how the story between MJF and Adam Cole was going to play out had the injury not happened. However, he had been dragging this out for a while, so I don't think we necessarily would have seen MJF vs. Adam Cole again at Full Gear with the belt changing hands. If that was the case, then I definitely would have assumed a title change was in store, as you couldn't just keep having Cole fall short 3 or 4 times in a row. Now that Cole is injured, they may need to pivot—maybe even drastically—from whatever that original game plan was. Does that mean Jay White wins the belt, since he's not accomplished much since being there? Possibly. But I'm not sold on that. In particular, with Worlds End being in Long Island on December 30th, that feels like the time MJF will drop the title, if he doesn't just walk into 2024 with it still around his waist as a bargaining chip for him to re-sign with AEW.
PREDICTION: MJF retains.
Texas Death Match: "Hangman" Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland
Rematch to keep the feud going. There isn't anything more to it than that. Both guys are talented. The match should be solid.
Update: Adding the Texas Death Match stipulation definitely upgrades this. Very cool.
AEW International Championship Match: Orange Cassidy (c) vs. Jon Moxley
I really hope this isn't just a case of circling back to doing the exact same outcome we saw before, with Moxley beating Cassidy. While I know that that was the original plan, and Moxley was never meant to drop it to Rey Fenix, let alone Fenix set to get injured right after and drop it back to Cassidy, I think it would be so much better if AEW diverts the obvious and has OC retain, instead. Someone else can beat him for the title. Don't just give it back to Moxley. At least, give Cassidy a win to even up the score between them, forcing a third match at something like Worlds End where Moxley can win it there, instead. But that's what I would do, rather than what I think they will do. They'll likely just give it back to Mox, but I'm still crossing my fingers the opposite goes down.
The Golden Jets (Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson)
If Jericho and Omega win, they get the future tag team title opportunity. If The Young Bucks win, Golden Jets stop teaming. I think that pretty much means Young Bucks have to lose, unless this is all just moving on from Jericho/Omega in a really "and then, it's over" type way. Young Bucks are coming into this match looking like the heels, so it also works to have them come up short and have to be humbled a bit.
Three-Way Match for the AEW TBS Championship: Kris Statlander (c) vs. Julia Hart vs. Skye Blue
Call it a hunch, but I could totally see Julia Hart winning this title and Statlander moving up to the world title level following this. The fact that Hart was competing for this title at the last event, only to still be in the mix, makes me think they wanted to hold off on that and they'll pass it over to her.
PREDICTION: Julia Hart wins.
Four-Way Match for the AEW World Tag Team Championship: Big Bill and Ricky Starks (c) vs. La Faccion Ingobernable (Dralistico and Rush) vs. FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood) vs. House of Black's Kings of the Black Throne (Malakai Black and Brody King)
Hm...this four-way wasn't where I thought they would necessarily go. Curious. I do think the titles will probably stay where they're at, if not just because the titles JUST changed hands, it feels like. Then again, maybe they just want to put them back on FTR. The way belts have been passed around at times in AEW makes it so it's never a safe thing to say a champion will retain, as they could easily just give them to Rush and Dralistico for shits and giggles, but I'll stick with the champs retaining, for now...even though there's a big, big part of me thinking FTR is going to win. I'm about 50/50, actually.
PREDICTION: Ricky Starks and Big Bill win.
This page will be altered on a regular basis to reflect changes to the show including any new matches added to the lineup, adjustments to the card, revised predictions and any other information about this event. Stay tuned for the latest updates!
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