Wednesdaymania 227: Fyter Fest

By now, if you're a wrestling fan, you've likely seen a lot of buzz on them interwebs about the latest AEW Pay Per View, Fyter Fest. This, like most things with AEW, kind of started as a joke, poking fun at the Fyre Fest music festival that wasn't. Teaming up with CEO, a Videogaming Tournament company, this was AEW's first real foray into cooperative PPV, with the added bonus of the whole darn thing being 100% free in the US. I'd feel more guilty about everyone else having to pay for the PPV if Americans hadn't already had to shell out 50 bucks for Double or Nothing while the rest of the world payed less than half of that.

But you're not here for me to blather about the cost of doing business. You're here to see me run down the card and tell you what the big bad controversy was. Spoilers/Trigger Warning here for blood and some violence.

Here we go:

Fyter Fest 2019

This show and its preshow were available for free on B/R Live, an app on the ROKU and other devices. Z, myself, and our Wrestling Friendos watched it using a local internet provider who, sadly, could barely handle it. We didn't miss anything, thankfully, but there was a bit of buffering at not-so-great moments.

The commentary team for the preshow and the show itself was great. JR featured prevalently, and I enjoyed it all immensely.

The set dressing was great - there was an inflatable pool which commentary referred to repeatedly as the "luxurious pool", tents that resembled the actual Fyre Fest tents, and some models in bikinis who probably had really sore legs after standing there for ages... Well... some of them...

Best Friends (Trent Beretta and Chuckie T) vs
SCU (Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian) vs
Private Party (Isiah Kassidy and Marc Quen) 

 The first match on the preshow was the "Buy In", a three way tag match pitting the Best Friends against SCU against newcomers Private Party. I don't care for the name Private Party, but I'm just a stick-in-the-mud, so there's that. I didn't have much faith going into this match, I'll be honest. I love the Best Friends and SCU, but I didn't know what kind of chemistry all six of these guys would have going into the ring.

I needn't have worried.

This was a fantastic multi-man tag match. I was engaged for the full 16 minutes, and there was some crazy stuff in here. I did not expect Private Party, who I had never heard of before they started doing promos on the Nightmare Family YouTube page, to be so smooth and well-organized in the ring.

Eventually, the Best Friends won, giving themselves a guaranteed slot at All Out where they will get an opportunity at a bye in the upcoming AEW Tag Team Championship Tournament.

These guys are going places. Private Party are pretty darn good!

I couldn't find a poster for these two, so here are Allie and Leva Bates squaring off.

The next match was the very first Women's Singles match in AEW. The Librarian Leva Bates squared off with Allie (formerly Allie Impact). Allie was in her best Kitana cosplay, and the two had a pretty darn good match, which is what I've come to expect from Leva Bates, especially since her brief time in NXT as "Blue Pants". She rocks.

Unfortunately, she had been joined at ringside by the other Librarian, Peter Avalon, who has, apparently, fallen quite in love with her (or at her, rather) in storyline. This was pure comedy and I love it. He was constantly trying to help her when she did not need it at all, and he ended up losing her the match by literally throwing the book at her! It was intercepted by Allie, who eventually put Leva away in just under 9 minutes.

Peter, brah, she's just not that into you...

The two had a backstage vignette post-match where he tried to console her and get her into him the way he's into her. She was not having it. All he succeeded in doing was annoying and enraging her. Nice job, dude.

La comedia de las comedias...
Michael Nakazawa vs Alex Jebailey

No one expected much from this match. No one should have expected much from this match. It's a comedy wrestler (Nakazawa) vs a non-wrestler (Jebailey). Jebailey runs the gaming tournament which Fyter Fest had joined up with, and he got himself into a Hardcore match against Michael Nakazawa. The two had, up to this point, been exchanging ridiculous barbs on Being the Elite, and that was the entire buildup.

This was a total comedy match, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Jebailey is not a wrestler, and that was incredibly obvious during this match. Nakazawa had to do most of the wrestling work, which is actually fine, because Nakazawa is a pretty darn good wrestler, for all that he's absolutely a comedian. His whole gimmick is that he keeps baby oil in his trunks (a la Joey Ryan) and lubes himself up to escape from holds.

At least Jebailey didn't botch the moves he actually tried.
Seriously, he wasn't the worst guy I've ever seen!

It's always kind of a crapshoot when you're putting a non-wrestler in a ring. I mean, the last time I heard about this happening, it was when Joey Janela put David Arquette in a Hardcore Match and that ended really, really badly. Like, hospitalization badly. Thankfully, nothing of that kind happened here, and while the two did end up brawling outside the ring (complete with Jebailey dumping Nakazawa in the "luxurious" blow-up pool), no injuries occurred. This was, hands-down, the safest Hardcore match I've ever seen.

It was a hilarious 9:30, but perhaps about two minutes too long.


You may be able to tell that I'm disagreeing a great deal with Dave Meltzer, one of the most well-respected wrestling journalists there is, regarding this preshow. He was very much out of love with it. I really enjoyed it. I don't think it was serious enough for him, which I get. I'm usually 100% into serious stuff, but...

Fyter Fest is literally one big joke.

It's okay to be funny, guys. It's okay to laugh at this. We're supposed to. It's supposed to be a fun time for all. Wrestling is allowed to be funny.

But once the actual show starts, playtime is, for the most part, over.
We open the actual show with Christopher Daniels vs Cima

Cima is fantastic. I love his personality. I love that he's a Japanese guy running a Chinese wrestling school and promotion. I love that he and CD have such fantastic chemistry in the ring.

No seriously, these guys are an entire periodic table of wrestling.

This singles match was intense. There was a lot of deliberate, rough movement where the two tried to beat each other senseless. There was a lot of rapid, smooth movement where the two tried to out-athlete each other. There was a lot of trading pins, submissions, and finishers. The whole match was a great time, as can be expected from the leader of SCU and the man who runs wrestling in China.

I could've used the extra two minutes no one would've missed from the Jebailey fight tacked onto this one, because 9:40 felt too short.

And yes, Cima won fair and square.
And it was awesome.

The Native Beast Nyla Rose vs Riho vs The Magical Girl Yuka Sakazaki

This match is another multi-woman match, but I can forgive it because the Allie vs Leva match was at least one singles match. On the other hand, this is a great look at the three basic types of female wrestler: Small, Medium, and Monster.

On the Small side, we have cutesy Yuka Sakazaki. She may look like an adorable anime character, but make no mistake, this woman could probably turn you inside out. She's fast, she's a really good worker, she sells like a champion, and she is fun, fun, fun to watch! I love watching her serve as teeny, tiny David (Davida?) in any confrontation she is in, because she's only 5'2" (158cm) tall! That's a good half-foot shorter than most other wrestlers she'd encounter, which makes every comparison very, very exaggerated.

On the Medium side, we have Riho. Now, Riho has been wrestling since she was nine years old, and she has done so in one of the most notoriously tough and awesome wrestling schools in Japan, Ice Ribbon. Bear in mind, one of the prominent schools for women's wrestling in Japan was forced to shut down because one of the wrestlers put another through the building during training. What I'm saying is, Riho is tough. She might look like a fairy flower princess who belongs on a stage with a microphone and a killer light setup, she is more than capable of throwing down when she needs to.

And she's learned to fight dirty.

Finally, we have Monster-size. I legitimately believe that Nyla Rose is going to be discussed in the same awed tones we use to talk about Aja Kong, Awesome Kong, Bull Nakano, or Chyna. She's big, she's impressive, and she can really go.

For this three-way, Rose was wearing a cosplay of Black Orchid from Killer Instinct, which... unfortunately, emerald green and atomic chartreuse are maybe not the best combo, but Killer Instinct came out in 1994, so some poor choices in color are to be expected. Still, really cool to see another woman in costume at the gaming tournament!

Nyla impressed me with her ability to catch both of her opponents midair and send them flying across the ring in a fantastic fashion.

It was awesome. It was dramatic. I would've been fine with her being declared the winner.

Unfortunately, Riho eventually betrayed Yuka while Nyla Rose was down and pinned the Magical Girl for the win, knowing that any attempt to pin the Native Beast would likely still send her into the flipping stratosphere.

At twelve-and-a-half minutes, this match is a pretty good blending of eastern and western styles of wrestling. It's a really good match, and it's a fantastic women's match!

I just hope that next time they have Nyla on the card, she gets a win. Like, I really want to see her win.

Hangman Adam Page vs Jungle Boy (with Luchasaurus) vs Jimmy Havoc vs MJF

I have not hated a heel the way I hate MJF since... wow... not since the Miz, to be honest. He's fun to hate. Petty, obnoxious, and self-centered, he's one of the most effective Heel wrestlers in probably a decade at least. Seriously. Wow. He's awful. I love it.

We're obviously hurtling towards some sort of major match between Hangman and MJF, and I'm looking forward to it with great anticipation. And impatience. Come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn I wanna see it!

Page is, as they've joked many times on Being the Elite, a work horse. He's a freakin horse! And if you don't like horses...

Anyway, Page is great. Having had the opportunity to see him live I can tell you - the cameras are physically incapable of doing him justice. He's smooth, he's fast, he's strong, and he's not wasteful in the ring. You know how some guys will bounce around pointlessly or run the ropes extra times or just have a bunch of excess movement? Page does not. He moves when it's necessary for the match. He fights hard. He bumps well. He's 100% championship material. If he's not their inaugural champ, it might kill me.

Jungle Boy is so much better, both in-ring and as a personality, than I could've ever imagined. You hear "son of an actor" and you think "ah, he'll coast". NO. Not Jungle Boy. He's fast, he's great to watch, he sells brilliantly, his interactions with Luchasaurus are gold, and overall, he's an amazing wrestler. I'm running out of positive adjectives. He's great. I love it!

Jimmy Havoc is about as far away from my style of wrestling as you can get, most of the time. I'm not a deathmatch/hardcore kind of fan. I don't like that kind of wrestling. I do, however, like it when someone knows who they are and translates that into the ring. While Havoc may lack the polish of Adam Page, the dynamism of Jungle Boy, or the ability to make me spring a hate-on in the time it takes to blink like MJF, but he's great. He's the wrestling personification of goth punk. He moves with a sense of danger, strikes with urgency, and he's really good.

This match felt so much shorter than the 10:50 it took for Adam Page to finally put Jimmy Havoc down, and I loved every second of it.

Cody (with Brandi Rhodes) vs Darby Allin
Yes, this is the controversial match.

This match started out controversial and I was worried long before either man made their entrance. Darby Allin's introduction package makes me very concerned. He is a man who lacks the fear that keeps men alive. He doesn't fear death. He doesn't fear pain. He is going to get hurt. He is going to get hurt very, very badly.

He came out to the ring with a body bag with Cody's name and win/loss record on it. I was intrigued, but mostly okay with it. I've never seen Darby wrestle a full match before, and I was looking forward to it. I was not prepared.

Darby Allin fights like a man possessed. Or a man who is entirely empty of anything but the desire to fight, to perform, to hurt, to go go go until he can't anymore. It's mesmerizing. He moves in a way I don't think I've ever seen in wrestling. The fact that he was a skateboarder definitely works in his favor here, since he knows how to recover, how to fall, how to accept pain and move on. These are lessons you learn with skinned knees, broken bones, dislocated joints, concussions, and blood when you're boarding.

But really, Darby, a trust-fall where you want the ring apron to catch you?
DO NOT DO THIS EVER AGAIN, PLEASE.

This match was more brutal than the hardcore match earlier. This match was more brutal than any hardcore match I've seen in modern WWE. It wasn't even bloody. Yet. It wasn't bloody during the match.

No, that came later.

After the men fought, with Cody forcing Darby into the body bag and knocking him down with move after move, after Darby beat Cody down with move after move, after both men had fought harder than either thought the other could, they were forced to stop by something I haven't seen in ages.

They fought the full twenty minutes to a draw.

Meltzer thought they should have played up the possibility for a draw on the commentary, but I have to once again respectfully disagree. It made the draw feel real and unplanned, even though it must have been planned well ahead of time. I don't feel like they have to make Darby Allin feel like a threat. He does that just fine on his own. If they help him, they'll turn him into an underdog, and that would hurt him in the long run. Darby Allin is not the underdog. He's that stray with the wild eyes who clearly doesn't want to bite you but he will if he's threatened, and he refuses to come in from the rain and just watches you from under the tree with that thousand yard stare.

He's spooky.

So the match ended. Everyone in the room with me was freaking out because it was a great match and the ending really worked. And there's Shawn Spears. And there's a chair.

Z and I just watched that match where the Rock handcuffed Mick Foley and beat his head in repeatedly with chairs, no matter how many times Mick offered his back.

We weren't thinking we'd see a repeat in that ring.

Cody never got his hands up.

It was one of the most upsetting things I've seen in a while. I don't know what cut Cody's head open since it's the back of his head on the upper right side, not the left where the chair looked like it hit, but it was harrowing. The flap of skin dangling. The people in the ring panicking. MJF looking legit spooked when he saw the blood. The blood was probably not supposed to happen.

If anyone connected with AEW sees this, I hope they listen to this: There is no place in modern wrestling for chair shots to the head. I don't want to see that Cody has done something horrible because his brain crystallized. No, he wasn't concussed this time, but the chances increase every time this is attempted.

No amount of gimmicking can 100% prevent a concussion. It cannot be done. That isn't a challenge. That's just a fact. Even if you could prevent 99% of concussions, that's not enough. Stop it with the chairs. No chairs to the head. Ever.

Seriously, don't ever do that again.
It wasn't the kind of drama we like to see.

 So, yeah, don't.

And that's the controversy.

Next up we have the Elite vs the Lucha Bros
Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks
Penta el 0M, Fenix, and Laredo Kid

So, what do you get when you pit two of the best tag teams against each other with a giant, talented nerd and a really talented newcomer?

You get nearly 21 minutes of wrestling bliss.

So, there had been a few different moments where the Bucks did a Fyre Fest style mockumentary on the screens, talking about how things have gone wrong. One of the things that happened was that they lost the bags that had people's gear in them, including the Bucks' gear, so Kenny had to spend more money getting new costumes whipped up. That money meant that they had to ditch half the models, who were replaced with mannequins. Comedy. Gold.

But what were the costumes?

Well, what else would they be?
It's a fighting game tournament.
Also, that guy was a plant who ran up and did the Batista machine guns before getting laid out.
Good stuff.

 So The Bucks became Ken and Ryu, and Kenny became Akuma. Kinda. See, his Seamstress failed to deliver on time, so he came out with hair dye and Akuma's symbol painted on his back.

It was still awesome and lent some verisimilitude to the "We're working on it as we speak" aspect of the storyline!

Do I know why Penta and Kenny are going head to head? No.
Do I want it? YES.

This match was fantastic. There were hadokens, there were superkicks, there were moves I've never seen before. Another amazing Lucha Bros vs Bucks match. Another amazing Kenny match. My first amazing Laredo Kid match. He's definitely someone to watch.

20:50 later, we've got The Elite on top, but it felt like it was by the skin of their teeth, and it felt right.

Good Stuff.

Jon Moxley vs Joey Janela

There's a reason people chant "Please Don't Die" at Janela. The guy may have some issues to work out. And he endangers himself constantly.

Then again, after the Chair Shot, I didn't think I'd be too freaked out by this match.

To recap, Janela has said that he's 100% okay with dying in the ring.
Moxley has said that he's pretty okay with helping Janela achieve that goal.
Lights go off, no more rules. Lights come on, match can start.

 I've mentioned before that I'm not a hardcore/death match kind of person. That's still true. After the Chair, however, I was ready. I had hardened my nerves.

I was not ready.

 SO.

Barbed Wire. Lots of it. Thumbtacks. Backs being slammed into narrow metal things. Violence, violence, violence.

And yet, I wasn't as grossed out as I have been by other hardcore matches.

Yes, I still think slamming people onto barbed wire is stupid.
Yes, it's gross to see people ripped open by something invented to keep livestock from wandering around...
Still not as bad as Cody's scalp flap.

 So this was actually a pretty fundamentally sound match. Dean Malenko, who had run out after the Chair to check on his new boss, would probably approve of a lot of the suplexes and strikes. And everything was relatively copacetic for me, barbed wire and all...

Right up to the point where they got out the thumbtacks.

See, when I was a kid, someone put a tack in my chair in grade school. I used to go into chairs knees first (because there was limited side clearance and bending your leg was easier than sitting before you hit the chair and sidling in) so it stuck into my kneecap. A few weeks later, I stepped on another thumbtack in the hallway at home and watched it bleed for hours with a sick fascination. Tacks are a major trigger for childhood trauma.

Also, I hate seeing people's feet. Ew.

So when Moxley tore off Janela's boots and kept trying to jam him into the newly laid beds of tacks, I was super uncomfortable.

And it was not a comfortable finish. Nope.

After 20 minutes of violence, they eventually ran out of ways to damage each other and Moxley pinned Janela in the thumbtacks. This match reawakened my desire to see more gloves on refs. They're not just for safety, they're also great for storytelling. From the moment Moxley's blood was spilled, there should've been gloves.

Also, if they're gonna do the whole thumbtack thing on their PPVs, maybe have some kneepads and utility gloves for refs so they don't get tacked up?


All in all, Fyter Fest was another really good AEW PPV, leaving me wanting more, setting up new storylines, and advancing the company further into my good graces!

If you get the opportunity, definitely give it a watch!

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