It’s Thursday, and boy have I been slacking! I did watch Raw, and Rampage, and even most of SmackDown, but the house has kept me from writing because of my basement needing paint on the walls. Now that it’s been applied, we wait for flooring delivery and that will be wave two of “stuff we foolishly volunteered to do to save some money”. Wave three is tile around the tub, and wave four is baseboards and door casings - the contractor is being pretty cool about giving us an apprentice for a day at an hourly rate to install our doors and bathroom fixtures for us.
But that’s not why you’re here, dear reader! You’re here to talk about Fyter Fest, really the best episode of televised wrestling in a couple weeks. I thought the show was great from top to bottom, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Let’s crack in!
Image from Swerve Strickland’s Twitter
Opening contest: Orange Cassidy versus Wardlow © for the TNT Championship
I don’t know if this should factor into the rating, but I literally laughed myself to tears during this match. Orange Cassidy was flanked by his Best Friends on the way to the ring, and a little video played where Chuck Taylor and Trent Baretta told OC that Wardlow was bigger and stronger, but their lawyer Danhausen got them manager’s licenses and they're gonna cheat! A lot!
The first half of the match was straight up hilarious. Orange started by going for the hands-in-pockets powerup, but Wardlow pulled his hands out and then tore the pockets themselves out! He then pulled his singlet straps down and flexed, and Cassidy responded by going face to face with the monster and just…pulling those straps back up. Some great evasion by both men followed, including Wardlow cartwheeling out of a DDT attempt. Orange got something in his eye, distracting the ref while Trent undid a turnbuckle pad and Chuck grabbed a FRICKIN CHAINSAW from under the ring. Turns out that wasn’t subtle, as the referee saw both actions and the Best Friends were tossed. Orange tried to bait Wardlow into chasing him outside the ring, but Wardlow realized what was happening and discovered Danhausen hiding under the ring! A curse was threatened, but Danhausen thought better of it and Wardlow just smiled and let the weird demon go. That did distract Wardlow long enough to give Orange an opening for an Orange Punch that really rocked Wardlow, who stumbled back into the ring. Wardlow countered a second punch with a capture German suplex and tossed Cassidy around during a break.
The second half of the match was a straight up match, with Orange getting a number of surprising counters and kickouts from Wardlow’s array of power moves. Cassidy even kicked out of an F-10, the first time that’s been done in AEW per the announcers. Cassidy mounted a solid comeback with two Orange Punches and a Beach Break, but got caught going for a third punch and the powerbomb killed him dead. Wardlow picked Cassidy up and gave him a respectful fist bump after the match.
Four stars! A great combination of a comedy match and a really good wrestling match between a speedy underdog and a world class powerhouse. Wardlow really sold Cassidy’s offense, and he was great as the straight man in the comedy portions of the show as well.
You know, my hope was to streamline match descriptions going forward, and that last match really didn’t do me any favors because there were so many good spots! I’ll keep working on that though.
A video of PAC’s first defense of the AEW All Atlantic Championship followed, as he defeated Shota Umino on Tuesday night’s episode of DARK that appeared to have been taped at RevPro? I’ll look into it. Looks like it was a good one!
Chris Jericho got some time in the ring to talk about what a bad friend Eddie Kingston is, running down the list of Eddie’s acquaintances that have been beaten on his watch: Ortiz, Danielson, Soho, Santana. Jericho was in the first Canadian barbed wire match ever (it’s true, I checked!) and he’s bringing the Painmaker to his Barbed Wire Everywhere match with Kingston next week.
Eddie got a short backstage segment to respond to Jericho. He was flanked by Ruby and Ortiz, and said Jericho is going to pay for what he did to Kingston’s friends.
Match #2: Konosuke Takeshita versus Jon Moxley ©, AEW Championship Eliminator Match
A solid, brutal tough guy brawl that brought out a harder side of Takeshita than we’ve seen so far. Konosuke had a cut open up on his forehead during the first break but when we came back he had some great hope spots after a Helluva kick, sheer drop brainbuster, and frog splash. I never realized how much of Sami Zayn’s moveset Takeshita emulates until I noted the Helluva and a later Blue Thunder Bomb by the young DDT star.
Takeshita hit a great looking German suplex for a near fall, as Excalibur told us about Takeshita actually writing his graduate thesis on the German suplex, which is just fascinating.
Moxley persevered despite eating a lot of offense from Takeshita, and got the submission victory after hitting Death Rider and a series of trapped elbows.
Four stars! Really good stuff, and a fine sendoff for the young Takeshita as commentary told us he’s headed back to Japan and DDT. Moxley did a lot to put him over while still looking strong in victory. I have really fallen for Konosuke since he’s been showcased on AEW programming and I hope he comes back soon!
House of Black video showed Darby Allin getting attacked by Brody King (at Joe Bob’s Jamboree this past weekend!) as they discussed venom and how it gets into your system.
Match (?) #3: Luchasaurus versus Griff Garrison
Christian Cage accompanied Luchasaurus to the ring for a match against Griff Garrison, but first had a vicious promo against both Pillman’s dad and haircut. He then told Luchasaurus that Garrison looks a lot like Jungle Boy, and that motivated Luchasaurus to absolutely demolish Garrison. He won with the Tar Pit, a variation of Jungle Boy’s Snare Trap submission, and then slammed Pillman onto a table and choke slammed Garrison on top of him TWICE to ensure the table broke.
That was a squash, and we don’t rate squashes here! I mean, it was a good squash, if that means anything.
The Jericho Appreciation Society had a quick backstage interview with Tony Schiavone next. Tony asked them about their upcoming shark cage visit during Jericho and Kingston’s Barbed Wire Everywhere match. Angelo Parker and Matt Menard asked a lot of cage related questions but didn’t get any answers before they stormed off. Daniel Garcia then challenged Wheeler Yuta to a match for Yuta’s Ring of Honor Pure title at Death before Dishonor.
Hangman Adam Page had an interview with Schiavone after a break, and was quickly interrupted by his buddies from Dark Order. John Silver and Alex Reynolds challenged “those creepy perverts” from the House of Black to a match on Rampage.
Jim Ross was introduced to a cheering crowd as he joined commentary.
Match #4: Claudio Castignoli versus Jake Hager
Some good MEDIUM MEATY MEN MASHIN’ MEAT (™) action between these two former WWE Superstars. Claudio went for a quick victory but Hager wriggled out of both a Ricola bomb and a Giant Swing. Back and forth action, but Hager took us to a break with a nice looking Hager bomb and controlled the action in the tiny screen.
A Scorpion Death Lock by Castignoli led to Hager calling for the JAS to make a save, and their distracting presence got Hager a Uranage for two. He followed with an Angle Lock, but Claudio turned that into another Death Lock. Another JAS distraction, but this one didn’t take and Castignoli was able to connect with a pop up European uppercut and the Ricola bomb for the 1-2-3.
Three stars! Some solid back and forth and a good showcase for Claudio in his first Dynamite singles match. Hager was a good opponent for him given their familiarity, and both guys hit a lot of solid offense and looked great. Maybe one too many distractions by Menard and Parker, but maybe that will play into a later matchup. WHO’S TO SAY?
HOOK had a very short, very non-responsive interview with Lexi Nair, who asked if HOOK had a title shot in his future.
Video of Thunder Rosa’s Eliminator Match loss to Miyu Yamashita in Japan; she’ll be coming to challenge for the AEW Women’s Championship. Thunder Rosa and Toni Storm were then interviewed by Tony Schiavone, but were interrupted by Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter. Baker put herself over as the only good thing in the women’s division and gave Schiavone a sandbag, a reference to some earlier Twitter drama between Rosa, Baker, and Marina Shafir. “You try carrying her for a month”. Oof! Sick burn.
Match #5: Anna Jay versus Serena Deeb
A counter heavy match that Deeb mostly controlled. It took a while but the crowd did end up getting into this one, as Deeb busted out some creative submissions and counters. Anna Jay held her own, getting some solid offense and a nice Flatliner, but that was reversed into Deeb’s Serenity Lock and Jay had to submit. She didn’t break the hold, and Mercedes Martinez came to her rescue.
Three stars! A solid effort by both women, Deeb did a lot to make Anna Jay look good while still putting her submission expertise on display.
Schiavone was again backstage, this time with Jade Cargill, Stokely Hathaway, Kiera Hogan, and interim baddie Leyla Grey. Jade isn’t worried about challengers, and Stokely assured Cargill and Hogan that “Stokely Hathaway is for the baddies the same way Wu-Tang is for the children.”
After Excalibur did his trademark super fast rundown of the next week of programming, Jay Lethal and his associates went to the announcer’s table to demand JR say mean things about Samoa Joe.
Tay Conti approached Anna Jay in the trainer’s room, and told Jay she needs to make better choices for her career. That valet shouldn’t tell that wrestler what to do!
Main Event: Rickey Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs versus Swerve In Our Glory versus Young Bucks © for the AEW Tag Team Championships
This was just amazing. Controlled chaos throughout, and a pleasure to watch. A great thing about a triple threat tag match is the amount of creativity it can bring out, as well as the fact that everybody gets a chance to catch their breath and stay relatively fresh when they’re not directly involved in the action.
We had so much going on in this match, and I just gotta tell you to go out of your way to see it if you can. From the opening sequence where Keith Lee missed a flying spin kick and Matt just sold terror and noped the hell out of the ring, everybody looked so good, and had at least a few great spots that made everything feel important and meaningful. Swerve probably ate more offense than anyone, but those extended beatings led to great crowd reactions when Swerve was able to tag Keith Lee in for the hot tag.
Powerhouse Hobbs and Lee had some great matchups when they were in the ring together, including a fantastic sequence where they both were on the top of the turnbuckle. Hobbs was able to punch Lee off and launch himself for an insanely far frog splash. Later, Hobbs hit Lee with a sidewalk slam and followed up by slamming literally every other opponent onto Lee.
Before that, though, a ref bump led to the belt getting involved, but Starks kicked Matt before he could attack with it. Swerve got the belt and teased attacking Lee, but he was hit by Matt who then cleaned house with the belt before the ref came to.
Somehow, Lee recovered and, after beating the Bucks with a lost shoe, a HUGE tope by Lee out of the ring led to Swerve getting a stomp and the pinfall victory!
Four stars! I didn’t love the Swerve heel tease in a match where they would go on to win the championships, but other than that minor quibble this was a fantastic match. I will give booking the benefit of the doubt and hope that Swerve in my Glory isn’t just a team put together because they are killing time until a Swerve / Lee feud. This was great tag team wrestling and I can’t say enough good things about it.
And that’s it! A fantastic show from the opening contest to the main event, Five Good Things are easy to highlight:
1- Orange Cassidy versus Wardlow was a great opener, getting the crowd hyped with two good guys who are extremely over right now. Wardlow was surprisingly competent with the comedy parts, and Cassidy more than held his own in with the wrestling components.
2- Moxley and Takeshita had a great send off match for Takeshita, and both guys looked really good in a fun brawl.
3- Claudio Castignoli and Jake Hager had another good brawl with a bunch of good highlights as we start Castignoli on his AEW journey.
4- The ThunderStorm promo with Britt Baker was short and vicious!
5- That main event, tho… It was just SO, SO GOOD. Watch it! Do it!
I’ll be back to wrap everything up tomorrow, but I’ve also got the electrician and the pug has a vet appointment so I’ll do my best to knock things out early. What do you think about changing show recaps into just one weekly deal? I hate to take recaps away if anyone is actually reading them, but they’re a little time consuming. Maybe we move to two blogs a week, more of a Casual Friday format but on like Mondays and Thursdays? Then we can lump all the weekend shows onto Monday and Dynamite and Raw onto Thursday? We’ll need new alliterative names, of course, but let me know what’s best for you, dear reader. I’m off to read an AP style guide and see if I can’t get something PUBLISHED! (ERMAHGERD)
I appreciate you stopping by, and would love it if you drop your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also follow me on Twitter @ElOsoPequeno, where I try to remember to post whenever I update the blog.
Have a good one!
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