AEW Full Gear 2023 - November 18th, 2023
AEW Full Gear 2023 was the fifth annual Full Gear pay-per-view produced by All Elite Wrestling (AEW). The event took place on Saturday, November 18th, 2023, at the Kia Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California.
11 matches were contested at the event, including 3 on the Zero Hour PPV Pre-Show. In the main event, MJF defeated Jay White to retain the AEW World Championship. In other matches, "Timeless" Toni Storm defeated Hikaru Shida to win her record-tying third AEW Women's World Championship and Swerve Strickland defeated "Hangman" Adam Page in a critically acclaimed Texas Death Match.
The event was also notable for the signing of international wrestler Will Ospreay to AEW. Ospreay had been competing on AEW programming while still under contract to New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). He officially joined the AEW roster in February 2024 after fulfilling his commitments to New Japan.
EVENT BACKGROUND:
Full Gear is an annual event held in November by AEW since 2019, generally around the week of Veterans Day. It is considered one of AEW's "Big Four" PPVs, which includes Double or Nothing, ALL OUT and Revolution, their biggest four events produced quarterly. Out of the four, Full Gear is AEW's only pay-per-view to be traditionally held on a Saturday. During the AEW ALL IN: LONDON 2023 post-event media scrum on August 27th, 2023, it was announced that the fifth annual Full Gear event would be taking place on November 18th, 2023, at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. Tickets for the event went on sale on September 8th, 2023. AEW also partnered with Joe Hand Promotions to air Full Gear in select theaters across the United States and in select out-of-home establishments such as restaurants across North America.
Due to the event taking place in AEW Collision's normal Saturday night time slot, that weekend's episode of Collision was instead held live at the same venue the night before on Friday, November 17th at 8 PM ET. This didn't affect AEW's regular Friday program, AEW Rampage, which also aired live on that same night from the same venue at its normal 10 PM ET time slot.
STORYLINES HEADING INTO THE EVENT:
On the September 27th episode of Dynamite, Jay White interrupted AEW World Champion MJF. White claimed that he was ultimately responsible for MJF and Adam Cole's friendship and subsequent teaming as Better Than You Bay Bay, as Cole had gotten injured in their match at the 2022 Forbidden Door pay-per-view event, with Cole becoming involved with MJF after returning the following year. White then claimed that he would take the AEW World Championship from MJF. The following week, White, along with Bullet Club Gold stablemates Juice Robinson and The Gunns (Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn), attacked MJF. White subsequently stole the AEW World Championship belt and challenged MJF for the title at Full Gear with MJF accepting. Additionally, on the October 24th episdoe, The Gunns stated they wanted a match against MJF for the ROH World Tag Team Championship at Fu
Matches Announced:
Zero Hour PPV Pre-Show Matches:
- ROH World Championship: Eddie Kingston (c) defends against Jay Lethal
- Buddy Matthews vs. Claudio Castagnoli
- ROH World Tag Team Championship: MJF (c) and Samoa Joe defends against The Gunns (Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn)*
- AEW World Championship: MJF (c) defends against Jay White
- AEW Women's World Championship: Hikaru Shida (c) defends against Toni Storm
- 6-Man Tag Team Match: Sting, Darby Allin and Adam Copeland vs. Christian Cage, Luchasaurus and Nick Wayne
- AEW International Championship: Orange Cassidy (c) defends against Jon Moxley
- Texas Death Match: "Hangman" Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland
- The Golden Jets (Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson)*
- 4-Way Tag Team Ladder Match for AEW World Tag Team Championship: Big Bill and Ricky Starks (c) defend against FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood), The House of Black (Malakai Black and Brody King) and La Faccion Ingobernable (Dralistico and Rush)
- 3-Way for AEW TBS Championship: Kris Statlander (c) defends against Julia Hart and Skye Blue
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