MJF And The Winners, Losers Of Marathon PPV

MJF turned heel at AEW Full Gear 2022, as expected, as William Regal assisted the babyface-in-sheep’s-clothing to his first world title win. In a recurring theme in AEW right now, MJF will now move forward as a heel who receives babyface reactions. The same goes for fellow first-time champion Jamie Hayter and even Britt Baker.

Clocking in at around five hours, AEW Full Gear was yet another marathon pay-per-view despite AEW President Tony Khan insisting he plans to keep pay-per-views around the four-hour mark.

AEW Full Gear was newsworthy, nonetheless, with three title changes. Khan estimated the AEW November pay-per-view garnered around 140,000 buys, which is a stellar number with the promotion attempting to move on without its biggest draw in CM Punk.

AEW Full Gear 2022 Winners

The Elite

The Elite made its triumphant return, licensed music and all, as the EVP trio walked out to “Carry on Wayward Son.” Despite losing the first of a best-of-seven series, all seems well among The Elite, Tony Khan and AEW. Fans showered the conquering heroes with cheers, even making shady chants toward legendary locker room cancer CM Punk. More on that later.

The Elite’s return confirmed Tony Khan has firmly sided with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks despite Khan remaining mum on the backstage investigation involving The Elite and CM Punk.

The Elite’s new theme music could also be seen as a slight to CM Punk, particularly the lyrics “there will be peace when you are gone.” The Young Bucks made headlines earlier this week for abandoning the “Wayward Sons” trademark, and their entrance added more clarity to this situation.

Jamie Hayter

Jamie Hayter’s victory really felt like a star was born within the much-maligned AEW women’s division. Hayter is exactly what this struggling division needs, and with Saraya officially back as a wrestler, the AEW women’s division suddenly feels like it finally has the momentum that has largely evaded it for most of AEW’s existence.

Fans were very much behind the heel Hayter going over, as AEW continues to struggle in casting good guys and bad guys. There’s no way people will boo Jamie Hayter after such an organic rise to the top of the division, however a seemingly inevitable feud with Britt Baker—who is also a heel who gets cheered—could push Hayter toward babyface territory.

Some may argue that it’s okay for heels to get cheered, but that’s cap. In a world where wrestling Twitter is as toxic and tribal as ever, the modern-day wrestling fans’ thirst to hate somebody is insatiable. It’s on AEW to figure how who needs to be cheered, more importantly who needs to be booed, and book them accordingly.

MJF

MJF finally turned heel after tricking wrestling fans and media into believing that this time he was going to remain a babyface. Similar to MJF’s fake babyface runs alongside Cody Rhodes, and a fake-sincere speech designed to lure in CM Punk, MJF once again pretended to be a babyface only to turn heel. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me thrice, shame on everybody who fell for this duplicitous babyface turn.

MJF will now move forward as AEW’s top star in CM Punk’s absence, and if early buyrate estimates are any indication, he’s off to a good start in filling CM Punk’s shoes. Alongside William Regal, MJF figures to be a strong top heel. It’s a role he was born to play, and should still play. With AEW fans looking to cheer MJF, however, he’ll need to get more creative than ever to thwart these reactions.

AEW Full Gear 2022 Losers

Wardlow

It wasn’t too long ago Wardlow felt like the heir apparent as AEW’s next big thing. Though he squashed MJF at a tumultuous Double or Nothing pay-per-view, his win was overshadowed by controversy due to MJF’s actions outside the ring.

Despite winning the TNT Championship, Wardlow has failed to recover from his rained-on parade, and now that his TNT Championship run is over, it can effectively be classified as a failure. AEW has a lot of rehabbing to do with Wardlow, and it completely dropped the ball in creating a new top guy in what should have been a shoo-in.

Saraya

Saraya wrestled her first match in five years, and it showed. Even Saraya herself admitted to being rusty during a long, imperfect, but still serviceable in-ring return against Britt Baker.

“Shaking the ring rust off. But after 5 years man.. It felt so good to be back. [sic],” tweeted Saraya.

During an AEW media scrum, Saraya admitted that Baker carried her for portions of the match. Saraya figures to have better days ahead, and the feel-good story of her in-ring return after five years should trump what was an underwhelming return match.

CM Punk

Though CM Punk has a very loyal following, very few of them—if any—were in attendance tonight.

With Punk all but gone from the promotion, fans in Newark, New Jersey did not seem sad to see him go, chanting “f—k CM Punk” and “Colt Cabana” amid the return of The Elite. AEW fans have seemingly moved on from CM Punk after he infamously buried the company following AEW All Out 2022. It’s a far cry from the love fest between Punk and AEW fans upon his return to wrestling at AEW Rampage: First Dance.