Thursday, July 2, 2020

Quick Thoughts: AEW #FyterFest (Night One)

I only had time to put my pre-show thoughts up on Twitter yesterday. I don't necessarily have more time now, but I'm at least sitting down with a little coffee, so I'm gonna try to do post-show thoughts here in a slightly longer format. 


As noted yesterday, I get that no one needs my thoughts, and I don't care. You're getting them anyway.

1.  I liked Fyter Fest overall. It was a lot of fun, and it was over too soon. In some ways, it's a shame they put it on commercial TV because the commercials broke the flow at times, but I get that TNT has been a good partner to AEW, so AEW needed to find a way to try to pay that back and be a good partner in return.  Grabbing some eyeballs amidst a tough marketing landscape is one way to make that happen.

Business-wise, this was a no-brainer.  Cutting away during the Women's World Title Match for a hard commercial break right in the middle, though, that kind of sucked.


2. The Main Event's ending was both fascinating and maddening.  Which I guess means it worked.  But.  We had the Best Friends driven to the ring by Trent's actual mother, everybody in the world thinking that they deserved the belts, and she was actually there to see it happen.  To see her baby boy make good.  Here she is, visibly proud of how far her son has come.


Regardless of the storytelling, this was a missed opportunity for a super-strong feel-good segment.  I mean, I wasn't even necessarily rooting for the Best Friends until they lost.  But keeping the belts on a couple of guys who aren't even a real tag team when there are SO MANY great tag teams in AEW...

I hated that.  I mean, it really sucked a lot.

Granted, that might have been the point.

Anyway, the post-match storytelling with FTR set the future up beautifully.  I've thought before that AEW is really just Being the Elite with a wrestling promotion strapped around it, and that's still how it feels in some ways.  So yeah, I wanted the Best Friends to win.  But at least right now, this is a show about the Young Bucks and their buddies making a wrestling promotion, and it built that storyline first and foremost.

It's hard to argue with that because it *is* working, but I really, really hope the Best Friends aren't now buried by default.  It's hard to believe it, but an Orange Cassidy loss next week, followed by an incidental reduction in TV time could accidentally accomplish that.


Bottom line, the stuff with Hangman and Omega and the Bucks and FTR is great, and all things considered, it's probably not wrong to build that as the show's central plot.  Especially with Moxley potentially suffering from coronavirus. But the Best Friends are also hot, and there is a lot of competition for airtime right now. 

The Best Friends need something to do immediately, and it needs to be compelling. 'Nuff said.


3. I liked the Women's match in spurts, but it ran a little long, and as noted earlier, the commercial break was ill-timed.  Shida is great, and she has a terrific war face, but I still felt like the match sagged at times.  Contrast it to what we saw at Double-or-Nothing, and it doesn't quite hold up even though I like both women.

I'd like to see them do a little more with Big Swole.


4. We flipped back and forth to NXT a couple of times during the commercial breaks, and oh my God, the WWE is so, so white comparatively.  I'd never noticed before, probably because I'm a standard white guy myself, but wow.  It was actually jarring.  I wanted to check my calendar a couple of times to make sure this was still 2020, but there's still no baseball, so of course it is.

*sigh*


5.  I loved Jurassic Express vs. MJF and Wardlow as much as I thought that I would, or maybe even a little more.  Those guys are all great, and MJF set the finish up beautifully with his interview.

That's important because this feud gives all of these guys something important to do while other stuff is going on elsewhere in the promotion.  I mean, yeah, the feud itself is kind of marking time for now. We all expect everyone involved to do something higher up the card sooner rather than later. Until then, though, this keeps these guys on TV every week in an entertaining way, and that's also important.


6. Jake Hager vs. Cody was -- by a mile -- the best Jake Hager match I've ever seen.  And the finish was perfect.  Perfect.  Can't wait to see what happens next.  

Definitely didn't see that coming.



7. Last though: I was really rooting for Santana and Ortiz.  I like them a lot, mostly because of the NYC connection.  Wasn't surprised that Private Party went over, however, nor do I think it's a mistake to give them a title shot.  I'll be a little pissed, though, if they actually win the belts, though that could very well happen.


Maybe that would set Best Friends up to go after the titles again?  Eh.  I kind of think we'll see the Best Friends feud with the Inner Circle coming out of next week's Cassidy/Jericho match.  We'll probably see a ton of extra-curriculars there, which might well explain why they're not the champs.  Granted, they could still be the champs and feud with the Inner Circle, but that didn't happen.  Alas. 


Next Week:
My favorite thing on next week's card is The Dark Order vs. SCU.  All other factors aside, Brodie Lee is my favorite wrestler.  I love the Dark Order stuff, but I thought Lee was a standout when he was just Bray Wyatt's best goon.  Like Hangman, I too filled out one of the Dark Order's surveys and never heard back.  Not sure how many West Pointers the Dark Order is looking for, but they missed getting at least one.

The eight-man tag match also looks hot, and I confess a kind of sick fascination with watching Lance Archer murder Joey Janella.  I guess we'll see.

Anybody else watch the show?  What did you think?
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