Performance Review – AEW Dynamite: Fyter Fest Night 2 (7/8/20)

Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals

The undercard of Fyter Fest Night 2 felt a little like the dark matches before a Supercard, but Orange Cassidy vs. Chris Jericho over-delivered and the Dynamite boys and girls are still putting on fun wrestling shows.

Areas of Excellence Within Performance

Like a lot of Jericho matches over the last five years, for a while the match with Orange worked because of Jericho and didn’t work because of Jericho. Le Champion not just playing along but leaning into Orange Casisdy’s shtick was great, where much like the PAC match it crowned a sense of legitimacy behind it for how serious he took it. Also, you could see him trying a little too hard. Sometimes I was charmed by it, sometimes I was like: alright, Chris, you could’ve chopped that out.

Once they started heading home they got me, and they got me for a good 10-15 minutes. Orange Cassidy brought the party with a springboard corkscrew senton to the floor and tilt-a-whirl DDT, and got what must have been ten legitimately great near falls on Jericho. The guy doesn’t really have a finish – it could have been ANYTHING! Jericho using a bat and Orange kicking out was great stuff too; it’s not often I’m on the edge of my seat with current wrestling but here I was. Jericho eventually pulling out the win was a legitimate bummer, a successful bummer in that I want more. I expected a fun match but not some new age epic, not some millennial version of Flair/Sting.

The Young Bucks/FTR vs. Lucha Bros/Butcher & Blade 8-man rocked too, though it read more like a really good main event of the dark matches than an epic match. The dueling double-hop springboard hurricanrana and Canadian Destroyer to the floor were both incredible spots and somehow seemed within the realm of possibility. FTR vs. Lucha Bros next week could be the match.

On a show with Jake Roberts, Tully Blanchard, and Arn Anderson – it’s Taz who is the mic guy. Amazing.

Omega/Page vs. Private Party for the AEW World Tag Titles and Joey Janela vs. Lance Archer were both fine, not excellent wrestling matches but at the same time they both entertained and accomplished something… so maybe they were excellent wrestling matches after all?

Suggested Areas of Improvement

SoCal Uncensored vs. The Dark Order, eh.

My Favorite Things

3. Joey Janela Throwing Clothesline after Clothesline at Lance Archer
2. Isaiah Cassidy’s Springboard Somersault Plancha!!!
1. Orange Cassidy vs. Chris Jericho

Official Star Rating

4 out of 5 Stars

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