Thursday, July 9, 2020

Some Quick Thoughts Concerning AEW’s Fyter Fest (Night Two)

I’ve just read eight or more reviews of AEW’s Fyter Fest (Night Two), so I know that no one needs my thoughts on the show. 

You’re getting them obviously.  Deal with it.

If you’re wondering, the best review by far came from 411 Mania. Those guys are legit fans of All Elite Wrestling, which gives the write-up a useful perspective in my opinion. I liked what they said enough that I actually bookmarked their site.

Most of what I have to say this week is about the development of Orange Cassidy’s character. I talked a little yesterday about how Orange Cassidy is kind of a unique guy, and that I’ve wondered if maybe some of his detractors don’t get it ‘cause we’re all just a little too old. 

Reality is, sometimes a thing is just not aimed at you. I’m 47. No matter how much I work at it, I’ll always have a different perspective than my 15-year-old daughter.


Which is a long way of saying that what I personally would like to see next is some kind of fire promo from Cassidy coming off this match to open next week’s Dynamite. I don’t think that’s gonna happen, though, because we’ve never seen anything like that from Orange Cassidy, and as I said yesterday, the reason might be more about what I’ve been conditioned to expect than it is about what is or isn’t working for this one specific guy.

I kind of wonder if I’m not fully appreciating what I’m watching.

Last night’s match with Chris Jericho elevated Cassidy to about the same level as Darby Allin or Sammy Guevara. These are guys who can legitimately wrestle Le Champion or Jon Moxley on a Wednesday and pop the crowd, who we believe might actually beat one of those guys given the right circumstances, but who are still not quite advancing to the championships of, say, the TNT Title Tournament. I mean, I’m sort of expecting Allin to take the TNT Championship Belt off of Cody Rhodes when they finally wrestle their third time is the charm match, but we can all see that this won’t happen next week, right?

All other factors aside, Cody is still telling a story with the title belt.


It’s fair, then, to compare what happens next for Cassidy against Allin’s progress over the past year. Both guys are about the same size, and if anything, Cassidy is actually a little bigger, and neither guy was, like, a nationally recognized main eventer before coming to AEW.  Again, Cassidy probably had the stronger following coming into the promotion, but I, casual fan that I am, had ever heard of either one.

The thing is, we know what to expect from Allin coming off a match like what we saw last night. If nothing else, we’d get a 90-second short film along with some kind of ring entrance that directly referenced last night’s match. 

Allin would build from the heat of the match. 

He’d never let you forget what you just saw.

Happily, we’ve already seen some of this, granted in a very different form, from Cassidy. He is, for example, still wearing the bloody shirt and ear-bandage from when he got busted open two weeks ago. I still think, though, that he’s hampered by not talking. If he’s gonna prove me wrong, well, he actually needs to prove it starting next week. 

Chris Jericho gave him one Hell of a push.

I really liked the match, by the way. Jericho looked a little rough trying to sell the diving DDT, but the stuff with Santana and Ortiz was great, as were all of the high spots. I really thought Cassidy was gonna pull it out there for a minute, which is saying something because I in no way thought Jericho was going to job heading into this match.

Let me just say, too, that AEW needs Sammy Guevara back ASAP. Inner Circle vs. Best Friends is the obvious way to go from here, and I can just see Guevara’s return. “I’m gone for a month, and look what happens!”

I actually have this whole promo scripted in my head. It’s too easy. “Yeah, I said some awful things that I shouldn’t have said, and what I’ve realized is that I really am a Spanish God, and that people take what I say totally seriously. My words have power…

“And they should.  I’m gone for a month, and look what happens!”



The rest of the show went about the way I expected, save that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought that I would. Overall, I liked Night Two a good bit more than Night One. In particular, the eight-man tag match was just so, so good. I mean, my God, it was good. Not just the high spots, which were of course amazing, but the whole thing.

None of that is surprising, exactly, but when you’re expected to steal the show and then you surpass expectations anyway, well, that’s pretty impressive.



I also liked the opener a good bit more than I was expecting, though in this case, I wasn’t really expecting a lot. I’m just not a huge fan of Private Party. They’re fine, but AEW has a lot of tag teams that are better than just “fine”. This match was better than “fine” by a lot though, and in particular, the last three minutes or so were a lot better than “fine.”

That’s all I’ve got. Super curious to see what happens next. That was probably the point.

Enjoy the weekend!

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