Following up with last week’s “biggest takeaways” from Night 1 of AEW Fyter Fest, Night 2 had its fair share of moments worth talking about, too.
Here is a rundown of my overall impressions of what stood out to me, some thoughts that ran into my mind and some questions/comments/concerns that popped into my head while watching this show.
Simple Works
How basic and fundamental is this feud between MJF and Chris Jericho? Every step of the way, they’re doing old school, generic, baseline booking and it’s working.
You don’t need to be super fancy about something to make it engaging. Twists and swerves are good only when executed well. Otherwise, they’re cheap gimmicks that make something look even worse in retrospect once the immediate effect wears off.
Sure, it’s predictable that Jericho will find his way through the tasks leading up to MJF. That doesn’t matter. It’s about the journey to get to that point.
I’ll take a simple “young guy could have been a great protege, but he has too much of an ego and wants to take out his predecessor” and “chicken shit heel wants to wear down a babyface before fighting him” combo over some convoluted mess that drags out and then leads nowhere because “plans changed” any day.
The Elite Hunter is Losing Steam, But Better Than Nothing
When Scorpio Sky started wrestling more outside of SCU than as a team, I thought AEW was just setting him up for a singles push out of the trio. Then, the angle of Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian breaking up once they lost pretty much left Kaz with nothing to do.
Going after The Elite started off great. For a solid couple weeks, I thought maybe it would work out well as a renegade character and he’d get even more popular.
Sadly, I’m not getting that feeling anymore. It doesn’t seem as though the legs are there, nor that AEW set him up properly to be effective at this role he’s taken on. Instead of hunting down the members of that faction, he’s just picking a fight and sometimes not coming out on the losing end.
It’s better than nothing. There’s a chance this turns around and it does pay off. However, I didn’t see it this week with his loss to Gallows and subsequent beating.
Andrade’s Upgrade
Chavo Guerrero is a much better choice to be the manager and mouthpiece for Andrade El Idolo, rather than Vickie Guerrero.
Not only is Guerrero too domineering on the mic and would overshadow Andrade, she’s also busy being alongside Nyla Rose. I’d like for that partnership to end, too, but at least not having her pull double duty is a step in the right direction.
It’s great to see Chavo back on screen in some fashion. I always liked him and it’s clear he’s never lost his passion for the business. How WWE never found much of a role for him is beyond me. Not everyone can have a job as a producer or trainer, naturally, but I just expected that to be a natural fit. Now, he can be not only a great mind to tap alongside the others who have come in recently, but he’ll be nice backup for Andrade.
Texas Death Match
Seeing two guys like Jon Moxley and Lance Archer beat each other into a bloody pulp is always fun to see. How anyone signs up for falling into barbed wire and being bashed in the head with a fork is beyond me. I’m having back problems just the way I’m sitting writing this article right now.
I’m extremely surprised to see Archer win the title. I just assumed Moxley was going to fight the good fight, get a decisive and brutal win after a hard battle and move on, eventually dropping it on a New Japan show.
Don’t take that surprise as a dig, though. Quite the opposite. I keep saying that I’d like to see Archer finally win something instead of coming up short, so this is a massive boost to his character. Not only did he win a championship (even though it’s not an AEW one), he did so by defeating a former AEW world heavyweight champion.
That’s big. The match was fun, I like the outcome and I’m curious what comes out of this, even as someone who doesn’t have the time to follow New Japan Pro Wrestling.
A Look Ahead at Fight for the Fallen
- I’m assuming Archer retains over Hikuleo, but that may be the total opposite idea. Maybe the plan was for Moxley to lose to Archer so he doesn’t lose to someone outside the company, but Archer can drop the belt to a non-AEW guy. Then again, that strikes me as more of a WWE mentality. AEW has such a better relationship with other companies and maybe it’s as straightforward as just giving Archer another victory to establish dominance.
- Chris Jericho against Nick Gage in a No Rules Match is something I’m told I should be looking forward to, but I honestly don’t know a damn thing about Gage enough to personally be hyped (nor to not be looking forward to it). The Painmaker doesn’t do it for me, though.
- FTR vs Santana & Ortiz should be fun. I’m going with FTR since Jericho will keep beating The Pinnacle.
- Private Party and Angelico stand pretty much no chance against Christian Cage, Jungle Boy, and Luchasaurus, right?
- My gut says Dark Order beats The Elite in the elimination match because there probably isn’t enough time to circumvent that and still find a new way around looping back to Hangman Page being the No. 1 contender. Predictable? Sure. But that doesn’t make it the wrong decision.
Miscellaneous Smaller Thoughts
Let’s round things out with a few quick fleeting thoughts to go along with the others from above.
- This “redeemer” thing for Miro isn’t striking with me yet. It’s a step up from the gamer character he came in as, but it’s still coming across as just someone trying to do random things to see what fits, rather than being themselves.
- Kenny Omega’s facial hair is ridiculous. I love it.
- One thing AEW has over WWE is that the random matches are more interesting, generally speaking. I inherently cared more about watching Wheeler Yuta vs. Darby Allin, despite it having no stakes, than I would have been interested in some do-nothing match on Raw with Jaxson Ryker It’s almost as if fresh talent is more exciting than recycling the same repeated matches again—but no, that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
- After putting in such a big effort with the Britt Baker heel turn, it seems so strange that she’s pretty much a full-on babyface right now. I guess they had the foresight to know she’d get cheered and just turned into the skid.
- That gutwrench slam The Blade did to Orange Cassidy on the turnbuckle made me sit up in my chair.
What were your biggest takeaways from night 2 of Fyter Fest? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
