https://www.youtube.com/embed/iXpEDb8BXHw
FULL GEAR 2021 (Order Now) week is upon us and AEW takes the final steps towards that PPV this Wednesday night at the Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum (Buy Tickets) in Indianapolis! Between DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, last week fans witnessed a great deal of venom being spat between Eddie Kingston and CM Punk, saw Adam Cole one up John Silver, Miro step up in the AEW Men’s World Title Eliminator Tournament and advance to the finals against “The American Dragon”, and multiple women advance in the TBS Women’s Title Tournament!
This Wednesday on DYNAMITE, the focus is zooming in tighter on FULL GEAR 2021 as Kenny Omega and Hangman Page will sign the contract for their AEW Men’s World Title Match, Rocky Romero comes back to AEW to battle a familiar opponent in Bryan Danielson, and Lio Rush competes in his first DYNAMITE match alongside Dante Martin. Plus one-half of FTR goes it solo against “The Bastard” and the Women’s World Champion, along with her lackeys, goes into a Six-Woman Tag against her FULL GEAR 2021 foe Tay Conti, Thunder Rosa, and Anna Jay! It gets underway at 8pm EST/7pm CST on TNT, or on AEWPlus.com, and it will be LIVE across the country!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-DWvYrSi3M
The official AEW YouTube channel is the best place to get prepared for Wednesday night as it is the home for DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE highlights, as well as the latest editions of DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, and ROAD TO! And for the latest breaking news, as well as highlights as they happen, the official AEW Twitter is the place to be!
THE CONTRACT SIGNING…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xWVmeY56wd8
This impending fight at FULL GEAR 2021 has been anticipated for over year, ever since Kenny Omega defeated Adam Page in the Men’s World Title Eliminator Tournament Finals at last year’s event to earn his championship match with the winner of Eddie Kingston versus Jon Moxley. As history tells us, Mox successfully retained his championship that night for the last time because, at DYNAMITE: WINTER IS COMING, Kenny conspired with Don Callis to screw “The Purveyor of Violence” out of his championship. “The Cleaner” has reigned over All Elite Wrestling since that cold December night, 345 days come bell time on Saturday, and retained the championship on six occasions. In terms of tenure, Omega is the longest reigning champion, but Moxley still holds his status as the most successful champ with nine defenses.
This Wednesday night on DYNAMITE though, Omega may be signing the contract that seals the deal on his final championship defense. Hangman Page, by virtue of winning the Casino Ladder Match last month, earned this title opportunity, but to be frank, it is something he has been fighting to get for over two years. It’s been a long road to get here, but the stars couldn’t have aligned more perfectly for Hangman to make his return to AEW from the injuries inflicted by The Elite, and to get back to work following the birth of his child, than by doing so in facing down his former World Tag Team Championship partner.
During this contract signing, there is no doubt the World Champion will attempt one last time to rock the foundation of Hangman’s confidence, but even before that Elite assault that initially put him on the shelf, Page seemed to be walking around with a self-belief no one had seen since AEW’s inception. He is not going to be a shook one going into FULL GEAR 2021; perhaps Omega will see that on Wednesday night, perhaps not, but one thing each man will see by the end of the night is their respective names on the most important piece of paper either has signed in their wrestling careers.
Hangman Page versus Kenny Omega is inevitable, it will happen Saturday night on pay-per-view; it’s just a matter of what happens in these last few days before FULL GEAR 2021!
A SPECIAL CHALLENGE…
“The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson vs. Rocky Romeo (w/ Orange Cassidy)
Four times in their respective careers, careers that began in 1999 in the case of Bryan Danielson and 1997 for Rocky Romero, just four times in their shared wrestling history have these two products of California’s Inoki Dojo ever fought one-on-one.
4/16/04: The NJPW Inoki Dojo hosts the Best Of The American Super Juniors and Bryan Danielson defeats Rocky Romero to win the tournament, thus securing himself a spot in the NJPW Best Of The Super Junior XI Tournament where he makes it to the Semi-Final round before losing to Koji Kanemoto.
4/2/05: Inside the Asbury Park Convention Hall, Danielson once more entered into the Best Of The American Super Juniors Tournament, but this time his opponent would not exactly be Rocky Romero, but rather Rocky under the guise of Black Tiger IV. A mask made famous by Mark “Rollerball” Rocco, Eddie Guerrero, and Silver King before him, Romero competed under that guise on-and-off until April 2009, and on that rainy New Jersey night, it may have been the key ingredient to Rocky securing his lone victory in their series of matches.
12/3/05: A World Champion at the time, Bryan Danielson defends said championship against Rocky Romero in New York City and defeats him after nearly 16 minutes of action.
2/22/08: Same promotion as that 2005 fight, this time there are no titles on the line at this Long Island venue, but a potential title opportunity is on the line for the winner of this tournament. In the first round, Danielson once more bests Romero, this time in 11 minutes.
Now those four battles are not the only time Danielson and Romero have collided; between New Japan, Pro Wrestling NOAH, PWG, and other locations, there have been well over twenty encounters, but only that quartet of singles bouts. They’ve been allies, they’ve been foes, and within the Inoki Dojo that operated out of California, they were training partners in the early years of their careers.
Suffice to say they know one another quite well, have very complimentary hybrid styles when it comes to how they compete as professional wrestlers, and as such, Rocky Romero makes the perfect opponent for Bryan Danielson to hone his skills against on the precipice of his Men’s World Title Eliminator Finals fight with Miro at FULL GEAR 2021. But one question must be posited heading into this fight on Wednesday night…
What does Orange Cassidy have to do with this? Is OC now a member of New Japan’s CHAOS unit alongside Rocky, Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, and Hirooki Goto? Is “Freshly Squeezed” out there because of the whole sunglasses incident that took place in Kansas City after DYNAMITE went off the air? Just what is his motivation in accompanying Rocky Romero out to the ring? Is it because of how The Best Friends crew accepted Rocky as their own last May, honoring the Roppongi Vice bonds of Romero and Trent?
We shall all find out on DYNAMITE just what is going on here, just as we shall see if “The American Dragon” using this fight to stay read for Saturday night’s pay-per-view event is a wise decision.
Miro will certainly be watching…
ONE-ON-ONE…
AAA World Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood vs. “The Bastard’” PAC
https://www.youtube.com/embed/KtNvcOPA-BY
Last week in Independence, MO we all witnessed Cody Rhodes get whacked across the skull with the AAA Tag Team Titles by Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood. That assault was directly responsible for “The American Nightmare” dropping the bout to Andrade El Idolo, but it wasn’t until after the fact that we learned a little more detail about how this alliance, that also cost The Lucha Brothers the AAA Tag Team Championships, came to be.
Just like anything else with MJF, of course there is money involved, and that deal extends into this week as well where, as heard in that tweet embedded right above, Dax Harwood has laid out a challenge for PAC to meet him in the ring this Wednesday night! It’s an intriguing prospect, this first-time for AEW battle, especially considering how much each man has changed since they collided inside the armories of Orlando eight years ago in matches only those in attendance were able to witness.
Just as Danielson and Romero, this fight is an interesting risk for Dax given the AEW World Tag Team Title match coming FTR’s way on Saturday night at FULL GEAR 2021. Is it worth the risk of injury just to make a statement at PAC’s expense? That money that MJF took off Andrade, does Harwood even get a cut to make this endeavor worth his time and energy when he and Cash are on the precipice of reclaiming the titles they lost at FULL GEAR 2020? Only time will tell…
TAG TEAM CHALLENGE…
Lee Moriarty & Matt Sydal vs. Dante Martin & Lio Rush
It may be a skosh delayed, the teams may not be the same as initially planned, but this Wednesday night on DYNAMITE, Lio Rush will finally step into an AEW ring for an actual match. He may have stepped out as part of the Casino Battle Royale at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2021 last May, but this will be his first traditional match and what better way than with his new charge at his side.
Since Dante Martin came under the wing of “The Man Of The Hour”, he has rattled off three straight wins over JDX, Matt Sydal, and Frankie Kazarian on this week’s edition of AEW DARK. Certainly a better streak than Dante’s three bouts prior to Lio’s entrance into his life, a singles loss to Malakai Black, and tag team defeats against FTR and The Nightmare Family with Matt Sydal as his partner.
Matt, ever the even-keeled man, has taken Martin’s decision in stride and actually rebounded quite quickly to bring AEW’s new acquisition Lee Moriarty under his tutelage. That brings us to this intriguing tag team challenge pitting the two mentors with their new mentees, almost a game to see which man is better suited to teach the next generation. Matt and Lio have only fought once before, several years ago in Tijuana as two men in a four way contest, but Martin holds an August victory over Lee in the latter’s very first AEW match.
Should be a wild tag team battle given the abilities of all four men, and the one guaranteed winner for this will be the fans watching live in Indianapolis and around the world on TNT and AEWPlus.com!
SIX WOMAN TAG…
AEW Women’s World Champion Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D, Jamie Hayter & Rebel
vs.
Anna Jay, Tay Conti, & Thunder Rosa
https://www.youtube.com/embed/O7KZYQSf7Zs
Last week on DYNAMITE, the distractions and interference provided by Dr. Britt Baker and Rebel created the opportunity for Jamie Hayter to advance in the TBS Women’s Title Tournament. As can be seen in the video embedded above, the victory was clearly not enough for the Good Doctor and her lackeys, but thankfully Anna Jay has a friend in #1 Contender Tay Conti who rapidly hit the ring to even the odds a bit. Still, with Conti focusing on knocking Britt’s pearly whites out, Rebel and Hayter were able to take back control.
Again, thankfully there is someone out there who despises the Women’s World Champion more than anyone else on the roster, that being Thunder Rosa. Unlike when Conti hit the ring, when Thunder Rosa got inside the squared circle, Baker and Rebel ran like scolded dogs as Jim Ross would say, leaving Jamie Hayter to take the lumps for the team.
Wednesday night though, there won’t be any running as Baker and her ilk must contend with the #1 Contender for FULL GEAR 2021, the woman who topped Britt in that classic Lights Out Match, and the woman they screwed out of the TBS Women’s Title Tournament on the last DYNAMITE. It’s a chance for revenge, and a chance to garner an advantage heading into Saturday night’s pay-per-view. Which team will dominate just three days before FULL GEAR 2021?
FULL GEAR 2021 (Order Now) is just days away and this Wednesday, when AEW heads to the Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum (Buy Tickets) in Indianapolis, things are going to be explosive! Omega and Page officially sign their World Title Match contract, “The American Dragon” welcomes “Azucar” back to AEW, Dax Harwood goes solo against PAC, and the Women’s World Champion, takes her lackies into a Six-Woman Tag against Tay Conti, Thunder Rosa, and Anna Jay! The actions kicks off LIVE at 8pm EST/7pm CST on TNT, or on AEWPlus.com for our international audiences!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcfzQ1xnFY0
For the latest DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE highlights to get you prepared for Wednesday night, as well as this week’s episodes of DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, and ROAD TO, visit the official AEW YouTube channel!
Article source: allelitewrestling.com