AEW: 10 Takeaways from Fyter Fest

In a busy wrestling weekend, AEW stands out with a wrestling show filled with a variety of wrestling matches while continuing their masterful build of the young company’s brand.

AEW’s second show, Fyter Fest, just happened and the show delivered on a jam-packed night of wrestling with a little something for everyone.

Overall, I really enjoyed the show and here are my 10 takeaways from AEW’s Fyter Fest.

Pre-Show was entertaining

In addition to three highly entertaining matches, The Buy In for Fyter Fest had a funny narrative parodying the Fyre Festival documentary. The backstage promos showcased that AEW put in the effort to transfer their Being the Elite comedy to the PPV and this gave the viewer something fun between the matches.

Kenny Omega’s massive plans to put on an amazing show kept falling apart, including a booked band that ended up cancelling. The shot of a drum set, guitar and microphone not being used was a great highlight for the pre-show. It’s a fresh departure from drawn out analysis and overdone recaps.

The Librarian gimmick has me worried

When the Librarian gimmick was first making circles, i thought it would be so much fun to see. Then, I watched the Buy In for Fyter Fest. To say the very least, I’m worried.

Certain things I expected: the fact that the Librarian would shush people throughout the match. There was even a great submission move towards the end of the match that incorporated it that I thought was unique.

But I felt the shush gesture was a bit overused and it wasn’t used as effectively as it could have been. 95% of the shushes were directed to Allie, the opponent for Leva Bates, but there was so much noise to actually be shushed. I wanted Bates to shush the ref when they were giving her a 5-count in the turnbuckle, or Bates and Peter Avalon to shush the crowds when they were both getting booed.

The audience seemed to be divided on the gimmick, too, with some fans being extra vocal about it. Also, the relationship between Bates and Avalon seemed a bit confusing to me. I’m hoping it gets ironed out and I’m proven wrong in the future. For now, I’ll hold on to this round of betting.

Michael Nakazawa vs Alex Jebailey was ridiculous, but worked

For what apparently was a rematch between a wrestler and a non-wrestler, I was curious and skeptical of what this hardcore match would be like. Well, it was ridiculous and I kind of loved it.

Seeing non-wrestlers always makes me hesitate, but Jebaily did enough to make the match work and also took some bumps I wasn’t expecting him to do. The suplex he did on Nakazawa really scared me because the poor guy landed on his head, but he seemed fine so it wasn’t too much of a concern.

The match hit every beat a hardcore match needed, and the ridiculousness of the match just worked. Nakazawa is getting over a bottle of body oil, what is life? I do love that AEW is embracing the fact that wrestling can be fun and wacky.

I am concerned that this could lead to other non-wrestlers getting involved and that brings up horror stories of WCW.