At Full Gear on Saturday night, the Devil got his due, thanks to William Regal, in an excellent main event. Maxwell Jacob Friedman is the AEW World Champion at 26 years of age, and the home town crowd were in no mood to condemn his bad-brass-knuckling behaviour. It’s going to be really fascinating to watch where they go from here, with Regal now in his corner. I have the feeling no one is going to want to boo MJF, so how can you have a heel champion more popular than any of the faces? What can they do to turn the fans against him, and who will he face in his first main programme?

There was the usual mixed bag of matches on the rest of the overstuffed card, which is the main criticism I had. I was so happy to have The Elite back on television, just A+ entertainers, and perfectly matched with the Death Triangle. Who can complain about another six matches between them? Another highlight of mine was the hoss fight between Samoa Joe, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Wardlow. BEEF! 50% of the Fatal Fourway bout for the Ring of Honor championship was fantastic (you can imagine which 50%). Here’s Tony Khan happy to only have a kayfabe asshole as his champion:

Another mixed bag was Historic X-Over in Japan. KAIRI defeated Mayu Iwatani to become the first-ever IWGP Women’s Champion in a seriously amazing fight. Also recommended are the mixed tag with ZSJ and Guila vs “Filthy” Tom Lawlor and Syuri, and the match between Will Ospreay and Shooter Umino. Oh, then this guy showed up on the big screen to announce he’ll be at Wrestle Kingdom in January.

Did you manage to catch either show?

Also, this will be the final Wrestling Thread I’ll be posting. If anyone wants to take over, feel free.