When AEW announced that the Continental Classic would be a clean tournament most fans rolled their eyes. People expected that at some point someone would turn up at ringside or some shenanigans would come into play, but that hasn’t happened and it is one of the reasons the tournament has been so simple and enjoyable to follow. It’s simply all about good wrestling with the best man getting the win.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case with the finals – at least as far as the Gold League was concerned. While there was some flexibility here due to it being a triple threat match, which means that weapons are technically allowed, that doesn’t mean it was needed. The encounter started out with Jay White, Swerve Strickland, and Jon Moxley brawling throughout the fans, and it’s something that felt unnecessary.

Those wild brawls are something AEW does well, and this match was very good if it was just looked at as a one-off encounter. However, in the grand scheme of the tournament, it felt out of place to see them wrestling that style, particularly when a steel chair ended up being used several times. While it showcased the wrestlers leaning into the triple threat rules, they’re three excellent wrestlers who didn’t need to do that.

They could easily have told just as good of a story, and had a match that was equally as entertaining without having to result to that. While it wasn’t a disqualification so technically the tournament did remain clean, it was slightly marred in a manner that it didn’t need to be, because the use of the chair didn’t make the encounter any better.