Review: AEW Fyter Fest Night 1

We here at FilmIronic have never hidden our deep appreciation for professional wrestling. That said, we have never directly covered the world of sports entertainment until now. But, since we’ve got a whole section of this website devoted to TV and AEW Dynamite is technically a TV show, there’s no reason why we couldn’t devote a weekly review article to the newest major American wrestling promotion, right? So we’re going to do exactly that, running down Dynamite‘s best, worst, and everything in between.

Appropriately enough, the start of our weekly reviews coincides with a sort of re-start for AEW, a two-night special called Fyter Fest representing the promotion’s first foray out of the state of Florida in nearly a year. With live crowds returning and AEW looking to put its best foot forward, which matches worked well, which segments struggled to captivate, and what were the biggest takeaways from Fyter Fest Night 1?

Best Match of the Night

There were a few standouts for sure – Jon Moxley vs. Karl Anderson in the opening match and Darby Allin vs. Ethan Page in the main event coffin match were definitely strong contenders – but from a complete package standpoint, I’m going with Brian Cage vs. Ricky Starks for the FTW Championship. The power game of Cage meshed well with the agility and speed of Starks, and although the finish was a bit predictable, it was executed well enough that it raised the overall quality of the match above the other two contenders for match of the night in my mind. Powerhouse Hobbs grabbing the FTW belt from Starks provided a moment of doubt that very nearly led to Cage retaining, but the 1-2 punch of Hook distracting the ref and Hobbs belting the monstrous champ led to the upset win for the cocky challenger. There were some solid moments including a slick crucifix bomb and the smaller Starks hitting a shock powerbomb on his much larger opponent, and the breakup of Team Taz seems even more inevitable now despite Taz’s insistence early on that “once this is over, we’ll be fine and dandy.” Sure, Taz. Overall, a solid match on a night when there wasn’t really anything exceptional from an in-ring standpoint.

Best Moment of the Night

There were tons of great non-wrestling moments on this week’s show. The confrontation between Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page, Chris Jericho‘s backstage promo that was cut short by MJF and the Chairman Shawn Spears, the literal black vs. white dust-up between Cody Rhodes and Malakai Black…all were significant high points that contributed to important storylines going forward, but for my money, the best moment was a fairly brief one: AEW Women’s World Champion Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. dropping an absolutely fire promo on her challenger Nyla Rose. Putting herself over as a supremely confident, self-assured champ who intends to make the championship mean more just by carrying it, Baker showed why AEW was right to crown her after an unspectacular start to the women’s title. (Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed Hikaru Shida’s run as champ, but even I admit that it was the right choice to switch the title to AEW’s resident role model.) Probably the best line of the promo, referring to her opponent next week: “She’s at the top of the food chain, but I’m off the menu.”

Worst Match/Moment of the Night

To avoid getting too negative, I’m only going to focus on one worst moment or match each week. Call me a starry-eyed optimist, but I certainly hope there won’t be too many significant negatives on a weekly basis. This week was no exception – there weren’t many candidates for this spot, and I’m going to focus on a fairly minor one. WWE has drawn criticism for missing big moments with its rapid-fire editing, and while this moment may not rank as a major AEW production botch, there was an awkward moment in the early stages of the main event that saw the camera cut from Sting setting up for a Stinger Splash (which he apparently missed) to…Ethan Page unscrewing one of the turnbuckles? Sure, that was a shot we just couldn’t have waited another 10 seconds for. Having JR and Excalibur awkwardly trying to cover for the fact that Sting’s signature move was absolutely not seen by the home audience was certainly not the ideal use for one of the most iconic wrestlers in history, especially since he and Scorpio Sky pretty much vanished after that moment. Anyone who’s ever seen a Sting match knew what was coming, but somehow the production truck just couldn’t hold on that shot a little longer so we could actually see the legend’s one major (attempted) contribution to the match.

Stray Thoughts

• Starting the show off with Jon Moxley making the Sandman-esque entrance through the crowd was an obviously great choice – nobody outside of maybe Hangman Page got a bigger cheer on the night. The fact that Mox pushed past a fan with a full beer did give me a momentary hope that he would chug/pour it all over himself like the ECW legend he was clearly channeling, but sadly it was not to be.
• No fewer than 3 matches featured one wrestler biting another – Moxley in the first match biting Karl Anderson’s face, Starks biting Cage’s fingers during a commercial break, and Darby Allin biting Ethan Page’s hand/face in the main event. Fyter Fest? More like Byter Fest, amirite?
• Matt Hardy vs. Christian Cage was fun if unspectacular, kind of like seeing a classic rock band in concert playing their greatest hits. You pretty much knew what you were getting going in, and it was satisfying enough to watch it play out. That’s it, just an observation. Couldn’t let two personal favorites having a match together go un-commented-on.
• Having new Best Friends honorary member Wheeler Yuta make his televised debut against Texas’s own Sammy Guevara seemed like an odd choice, but then again maybe the company doesn’t have that much invested in him other than a short-term filler partner for Chuck Taylor/Orange Cassidy while Trent recovers from a neck injury. That, or AEW’s creative team hasn’t had to think about who the hometown favorite is going to be for a solid year-plus and miscalculated just how much the fans would rally behind Guevara. The match being such a showcase for the Inner Circle member with only a brief show of respect for Yuta after the finish leads me to suspect it’s more the former than the latter, though.
• Outside of Britt Baker’s promo, Chris Jericho had one of the best lines of the night: referring to MJF’s challenge to complete the Five Labours of Jericho, the Fozzy frontman retorted, “You want to talk Greek mythology? I’m the perfect guy for it because I’m the god of thunder, and I am the god of war in AEW.” Yes, that is most definitely a Kiss reference snuck right in there by classic metalhead Jericho, and I am absolutely here for it.
• Speaking of Le Champion’s backstage promo, kudos to Shawn Spears for finding an incredibly efficient way of shutting someone up: hitting them in the throat with the edge of a chair! That kind of creative thinking is exactly why he’s called “the Chairman” presumably.

So that’s our review of AEW Fyter Fest Night 1! Overall, a solid show with few major in-ring highlights but plenty to look forward to next week. What did you think of this week’s show? What were your favorite matches and moments? Which matches are you looking forward to most on Night 2? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to follow @FilmIronic on Twitter so you won’t miss our AEW Dynamite reviews going forward!