AEW Full Gear 2025 has certainly shifted some major parts of the roster around after a whopping
Which Champions Retained?
The first title match of the night was for the CMLL World Trios Championship, with El Sky Team (Mascara Dorada, Neon, and Mistico) retaining over The Don Callis Family's Hechicero, Kazuchika Okada, and Konosuke Takeshita.
Surprisingly, the only other title that didn't change hands was Kris Statlander retaining the AEW Women's World Championship over Mercedes Mone. You know what that means
Who are the New Champions?
Probably to no surprise (at least not to yours truly), FTR's Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler defeated Brodido (Brody King and Bandido) to win the AEW World Tag Team Championship titles.
Right after their match was the Casino Gauntlet to crown the inaugural AEW National Championship, which ended up going to Ricochet, who had pinned Kevin Knight to win the belt—his first in All Elite Wrestling so far.
Mark Briscoe was in for the fight of his life against Kyle Fletcher, even willing to agree to a stipulation that if he were to lose, he would have to join The Don Callis Family. With his up against the wall and with a losing record against Fletcher from their prior matches, Briscoe pulled out the victory, capturing the AEW TNT Championship in an upset. This is also Briscoe's first title in AEW.
But the most shocking result of all took place in the main event, with Samoa Joe defeating "Hangman" Adam Page to win the AEW Men's World Championship for the second time, due to interference from a large number of The Opps, including HOOK, who turned heel to realign himself with his former stablemate despite wrestling alongside Eddie Kingston earlier in the night against The WorkHorsemen, and Kingston coming out to try to help Page.
Personal Reactions & What Happens Next?:
I'll be honest, while I saw some of this coming from a mile away, I also was stunned to see some of the other results.
If you check my predictions, I was adamant Samoa Joe was going to lose to Adam Page, for instance. It never occurred to me that the plan was to go the other way. Even if you had given me 5 guesses, I wouldn't have said Joe wins the title due to HOOK turning and then, Swerve Strickland would come out to fend off The Opps from Page. I thought if anything, there could be a tease of someone else going after Page next, like MJF, someone from The Don Callis Family, etc. Now that Joe is champion again, the obvious next challenger (beyond if Page just gets a rematch) will be Swerve Strickland. Eddie Kingston could find himself in a match against Joe, for sure, but as a sacrificial lamb in comparison to Swerve, who will be the first real contender, and maybe even the next champion. For a shot in the dark, I'll say he fails to win the title, though, and maybe this goes to someone like Will Ospreay when he's able to return.
Briscoe winning felt like a certainty to me after they just keep repeating this feud. Eventually, you have to put the title on the guy who is coming up short, or there's no point in having more matches. I don't think Fletcher needed to drop the belt by any means, but maybe Tony Khan felt hindered to not push Fletcher to his full potential with that title. It could have been an albatross instead of a boost. Or, maybe Fletcher has fallen out of favor with Khan, for all we know. I still hope Fletcher turns this around and continues to rise. Kudos to putting the belt on a guy like Briscoe, though, who has earned some time in the spotlight. I'd assume the next champion will be another upper-midcard type talent like Powerhouse Hobbs or Pac. It could be a good number of wrestlers.
The same when it comes to Ricochet. Becoming the first national champion should allow him some grace to hold the title long enough to set the pace. I don't think he'll be dropping it any time too soon, so for everyone thinking Bobby Lashley is next in line, I wholeheartedly disagree. Lashley could win almost any midcard belt in AEW and it would make sense, but if he's booked to snatch this away from Ricochet quickly, that'll be a mistake.
FTR was the most obvious result of them all, which I would have bet the farm on. We might never get confirmation of this, but I'm convinced the plan was to put the tag titles on FTR so they could drop them to Adam Copeland and Christian Cage. However, when Cope had to go off to film Percy Jackson, where he's been the past few months, I think Khan decided he wanted to go in a different direction in the meantime to just kill some time and have fun matches with a popular team that was getting over like he probably never would have imagined. Brodido gets a solid reign out of it, and FTR comes back around to winning the titles later. Therefore, I think we're looking at a ticking clock for when Harwood and Wheeler drop the belts to Cope and Cage.
Tell us what you think about these title changes by leaving a comment below! Who do you think will be the next in line to challenge for these titles, or possibly even win the belts next? Keep the discussion going!