Inner Circle Defeats American Top Team in Minneapolis Street Fight at AEW Full Gear

A massive, chaotic brawl erupted in Minneapolis, and it featured Sammy Guevara’s death-defying Swanton Bomb:

Wrestling legend Baron von Raschke also got involved after Ethan Page screamed at Jake Hager’s wife, Catalina White. The 81-year-old delivered the Iron Claw to the delight of the Target Center fans.

Eventually, the match ended with another tribute to the late wrestling legend Eddie Guerrero, who died in Minneapolis 16 years ago Saturday.

This time, it was Chris Jericho hitting Dan Lambert with a kendo stick and stapler before pointing to the sky, doing his version of Guerrero’s shimmy and finishing him off with one of the legend’s moves, the frog splash.

Faction warfare between The Inner Circle and American Top Team has run rampant over the past couple of months, dating back to Chris Jericho’s decision to interrupt a promo by American Top Team founder Dan Lambert.

Page and Scorpio Sky, who make up The Men of the Year, aligned themselves with Lambert and American Top Team shortly before that, leading to a rivalry between Jericho and The Men of the Year.

Jericho teamed with Inner Circle stablemate Jake Hager against Page and Sky on the Grand Slam edition of Rampage in September, and The Men of the Year came out on top thanks to interference from Lambert.

Jericho and Hager paid the price after the match as well with American Top Team, including Jorge Masvidal and Paige VanZant, beating down both of them.

That led to a six-man tag team match on Rampage pitting Jericho, Hager and Sammy Guevara against Page, Sky and former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos, who was making his pro wrestling debut.

Page, Sky and dos Santos won the match and another melee ensued afterward, leading to Santana and Ortiz making the save for The Inner Circle.

Subsequently, Guevara put the TNT Championship on the line against Page on the Oct. 27 episode of Dynamite with the added stipulation that Guevara would have to leave The Inner Circle if he lost.

Guevara managed to retain, meaning The Inner Circle were given the right to choose which American Top Team members would compete against them in a Minneapolis Street Fight at Full Gear.

Jericho ultimately selected Lambert, Andrei Arlovski and Junior Dos Santos to team with The Men of the Year.

With Guevara’s win giving them some momentum and the upper hand entering Full Gear, The Inner Circle rode that wave and prevailed once again in a team setting at the pay-per-view.

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