AEW Fyter Fest: Night 1 Review - July 1, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus) def. MJF and Wardlow​

MJF made a great point beforehand about how he's already beaten Jungle Boy a bunch of times, in addition to Wardlow beating Luchasaurus last week. Yes, Jurassic Express won here (as they probably should have because they rarely win whenever it matters most), but I have no desire to see the feud continue past this point. That said, this was a quality contest albeit with a few rough spots.

AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida def. Penelope Ford

I don't think it's a stretch to say that this was Ford's best in-ring performance to date. Of course, having an opponent as exceptional as Shida certainly helped, but to her credit, she held her own and put forth a fantastic effort. Shida's Falcon Arrow finisher has been well protected up to this point, so it meant something when Ford kicked out. This was a pay-per-view-level encounter that saw Ford gain a ton in defeat. Shida can have a hell of a reign as champion if she can continue to have matches like this.

AEW TNT Champion Cody def. Jake Hager

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't overly anticipating this outing coming into the show and didn't have high hopes for it, largely because they never had particularly strong chemistry together in WWE and Hager hasn't had many blow-away matches so far in AEW. It was a solid television match, but nothing I would want to see again. The finish felt overbooked so Hager could be protected in defeat. Unless Cody is going heel, I have no idea why Dustin Rhodes would interfere when no one attempted to interfere on Hager's behalf. Maybe the idea is that Hager will be suspended because he assaulted a referee, but why write him off the show?

Private Party def. Santana and Ortiz

This was a fun showcase for these talented teams, but I maintain that they're directionless and arguably aren't where they should be. Both tandems defeated The Young Bucks late last year yet haven't accomplished anything of note since. It wasn't the smoothest of mathces, but they worked well enough together on the whole that I didn't mind. With this win, Private Party will now challenge for the AEW World Tag Team Championship next week.

Taz and Brian Cage Sent a Message to AEW World Champion Jon Moxley

It was announced right before this bout that Jon Moxley will defend the AEW World Championship against Cage in two weeks at AEW's Fight for the Fallen edition of Dynamite instead of Night 2 of Fyter Fest. That's a result of Moxley being in quarantine at the moment with his wife Renee Young testing positive for COVID-19 last week. It's definitely the right and safest call. Taz cut another great promo hyping up their encounter and I applaud them for making the most of a bad situation.

AEW World Tag Team Champions "Hangman" Adam Page and Kenny Omega def. Best Friends

Not sure if I'm in the minority here or not, but I laughed my ass off at Best Friends being driven to the ring by Trent's mom in a minivan. Page and Omega usually go all out whenever their tag titles are on the line, but this fell short of being the barn burner I was expecting. It was an entertaining main event, but it never felt like the titles were ever truly in jeopardy of changing hands, especially with FTR hanging out by the commentators' table foreshadowing that they're next in line. I thought Page and Omega would drop the belts ahead out All Out so they could go one-on-one at the event, but unless it happens next week against Private Party, it looks like they may be sticking together for a little while longer.

Overall Show

I really loved how AEW managed to make Night 1 of Fyter Fest feel like a mini pay-per-view. Granted, not everything would have worked on a normal pay-per-view and it ended up being a glorified episode of Dynamite, but the two hours flew by, the wrestling delivered, and there was zero no filler. There was also effective hype for Night 2 next week. I'd be down for AEW doing more shows like this one in between their Big 4 pay-per-views in the future as it's a cool concept and should hopefully lead to a boost in the ratings.