Kyle Fletcher calls 2024 AEW Full Gear his ‘coming out party’
Kyle Fletcher says last year’s Full Gear was a validating experience for him.
Fletcher defeated Will Ospreay on the 2024 pay-per-view in a match that was awarded five and one-quarter stars by Dave Meltzer and was the highest-rated match on the show according to voters on Cagematch.net.
During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Fletcher said the match was the first time he had real evidence that he had become the wrestler he always believed he could be.
“I think that was kind of really the first time that I had this real-life evidence that I was the wrestler or the person that I felt like I always was meant to be,” Fletcher said.
“I’ve always kind of had this feeling that, oh, I’m meant to be a great wrestler. I’m meant to have success in this business. But you never really know what that looks like. I think that match and that night was kind of the first time I looked around, and the reaction and everything that happened, and I was just like, oh man, this is real, and this is happening.”
“It was like that was kind of my coming-out party, really,” he continued. “And then from there, that was the first piece of evidence. And then it was just being presented with those opportunities after that, and they snowballed pretty quickly.”
Following last year’s Full Gear, Fletcher entered the 2024 Continental Classic where he finished first in his group but was eliminated in the semifinals by Ospreay. The only round-robin match Fletcher lost in the tournament was to Mark Briscoe, who he faces tonight at the 2025 edition of AEW Full Gear.
In total, Fletcher and Briscoe have had five singles matches against one another. Briscoe won the first two, but Fletcher has won the following three.
Fletcher’s full interview with SI.com is available here.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.