With AEW WrestleDream now in the books, the next event on the AEW pay-per-view calendar is next month’s Full Gear event.

Coming out of Full Gear is when AEW begins it’s annual Continental Classic tournament, one of the most exciting times of the year for fans of the company.

There are a lot of names that will be hoping to be part of this year’s tournament, and there are several frontrunners to take home this year’s victory, and with it the Continental Championship.

Here are some early predicted AEW Continental Classic winners for 2026.

Ilja Dragunov

At WrestleDream, the Mad Dragon finally made his debut after weeks of speculation, with Ilja Dragunov now officially becoming All Elite.

Ilja is wasting no time in getting into the ring, with his debut match set for this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, as confirmed in the post-WrestleDream media scrum.

Ilja is a wrestler basically designed in a lab to thrive in the environment of a G1 Climax, so him entering AEW’s version would make him an early favourite to take home the win.

Daniel Garcia

In what has been an incredibly difficult month for everyone in the company, Daniel Garcia is one name that has been hit incredibly hard with the losses of both Andy Williams and Benjamin Satterley.

Garcia has had a number of breakout performances in Continental Classics in the past, with him still waiting for his one big breakout moment in the company.

This year’s C2 would be the perfect time to finally pull the trigger on Garcia, with him submitting Jon Moxley with the Brutaliser being a very emotional moment for all involved.

Kyle Fletcher

A regular in the Continental Classic, Kyle Fletcher often finds himself making it out of the first round of the C2 every year.

In both the 2024 and 2025 versions of the tournament, Fletcher would end up topping his group to earn a spot in the semi-finals, with him then coming up short in the semi-finals, first to Will Ospreay and then to Jon Moxley.

Fletcher remains arguably AEW’s top prospect for the future, so if he is entering this year’s tournament, it would be nice for him to finally break that curse and capture yet another title on his rise to the top.