AEW Dynamite Recap, Grades, & Opinion: July 8, 2020

AEW Dynamite Recap: July 8, 2020

A.K.A The One Where It’s Fyter Fest Night Two

Here. We. Go. The second night of Fyter Fest looks like an explosive card, featuring matches such as Chris Jericho vs. Orange Cassidy, the eight-man tag match of FTR teaming with the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega and Hangman Page defending their titles against Private Party. Other matches expected on the card are Nyla Rose against a mystery opponent, Joey Janela taking on Lance Archer and SCU vs. the Dark Order team of Brodie Lee, Colt Cabana and Stu Grayson. Here’s how it all shook out.

Results:

Hangman Page & Kenny Omega def. Private Party
Lance Archer def. Joey Janela
Butcher & Blade & Lucha Bros def. FTR & Young Bucks
Nyla Rose def. Kilynn King & Kenzie Page
Dark Order def. SCU
Chris Jericho def. Orange Cassidy

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Match of the Night: Chris Jericho def. Orange Cassidy

Cassidy came out to a new theme flanked by Trent and Chuckie T, who he sent to the back. Jericho came out with Santana and Ortiz, but didn’t return the sentiment and kept goons with him.

Cassidy started the match with a headbutt with his hands in his pockets and then turned the pace all the way up. Jericho was just too slow for him. Jericho caught Cassidy slipping on a DDT and put on a Liontamer, but Cassidy got to the ropes, where he was met with the loaded sock by Ortiz. From here, Jericho had complete control and beat the crap out of Cassidy, whose only offense came from trying to get shock pins in.

During a picture-in-picture commercial break after Jericho basement drop kicked Cassidy into the barricade, Cassidy was taunted by Santana, Ortiz and surprisingly, MJF, who was sitting ringside and threw money at Cassidy. Jericho continued to grind down his opponent, working his lower back and making sure to cut off his movement speed and prime him for the Liontamer again.

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Cassidy finally regained his footing and just started laying into Jericho with punches and busted out a hurricanrana. He then went for his lethal kicks, obviously to no reaction from Jericho, before taking the man’s head off with a massive superkick. Cassidy hit a massive splash off the top rope, but still wasn’t able to put Jericho away.

After a swinging DDT, Cassidy only got a near fall and when he went for his Superman forearm, was caught in a Liontamer. Cassidy managed to reverse the hold into a pin, which Jericho kicked out of, and then smashed him with a forearm. Unable to get a pin, Ortiz then threw orange juice in Cassidy’s face, prompting Best Friends to come out and even the score.

Jericho hit a Codebreaker, but Cassidy miraculously kicked out. Cassidy hit a Michinoku Driver for a near fall and then countered a Jericho move into a Stundog Millionaire. Cassidy went for his Superman Forearm, but ate a Judas Effect and Jericho pinned him to win the match.

The result was never in doubt, but man did these two deliver. Cassidy showed he has the chops in the ring to go with the best of them and Jericho made him look like a legit star. I don’t know where he goes from here, but his future in AEW is definitely bright.

Three Thoughts:

The Champs Spoil the Party

Kenny Omega and Hangman Page successfully defended their titles against Private Party. The match only went for about ten minutes, but it was packed full of action from bell to bell.

Isiah Kassidy was the star of this one. The guy is my age (22 years old) and having excellent performances on prime time television while I am sitting in bed with an ear infection. Anyways, he was pulling out impressive offense of all kinds, whether it was a unique backbreaker, taking part in a double C4 or just generally beating up Omega, which he did a lot of.

Anyways, Page was a heel all match. Before Omega came out, he got in Private Party’s faces and throughout the match just acted like a heel. At one point, he powerbombed Marq Quen into the crowd and had a rather negative reaction. There weren’t any issues between the champions in the match, a surprise considering what happened last week, but Page is definitely trending in a direction that won’t be great for his partner.

The Show-Offs Get Shown Up

Before I say anything about the match, everyone needs to know that I desperately want to see FTR face the Lucha Bros now. The interactions between Dax Hardwood and Pentagon were incredible and they just gave us a taste of something great. I thought this match was going to be a lock for the match of the night, but it really was just a taste of something great, not something great in its entirety.

The story was really just FTR and the Young Bucks trying to show off to each other and slowly earning each other’s respect. The two styles contrasted at the beginning, but eventually led to Matt Jackson having some offense with Harwood and Nick Jackson and Cash Wheeler teaming up for a Goodnight Express. Nick and Hardwood ended up hitting a Spike Piledriver together. Each time there would be a pin break by one of the Lucha Bros.

Speaking of the Lucha Bros, Rey Fenix took Nick and jumped off Pentagon’s back, hitting a freakin’ Canadian Destroyer to the outside onto the rest of the competitors. It was one of the craziest spots I’ve ever seen. In the end, Pentagon and Fenix isolated Matt and hit their finisher to pick up the win.

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Maintain Order

Before the Dark Order went out for their match against SCU, a video was shown of Cabana with a doctor and a massive bruise on his side after being thrown into a barricade or something like that. Lee vowed that if he joined the Dark Order, something like that would never happen again. The doctor cleared Cabana to compete and off he, Lee and Grayson went to duel with SoCal’s finest.

The Dark Order trio worked like a well-oiled machine throughout the match. The addition of Grayson was actually a great call, as he did a lot of the little things that furthered the quality of the match. The three kept tagging in and out of the match and aside from some exciting flairs from Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels, was pretty one-sided. In the end, Lee took Daniels’ head off with a discus lariat and forced Grayson to tag in Cabana so he could get the pin, which he did.

Grade: A-

The second night of Fyter Fest definitely delivered. I was invested in a lot of these matches and they delivered. The opening tag match was exciting and the perfect way to kick off the night. Janela and Archer exceeded my expectations of just a straight squash and gave fans a hard-hitting war. The eight-man tag match was very good, but didn’t reach the massive expectations I had for it. That’s on me, which is why I’m not docking the show points for it.

The Nyla Rose match was just a squash and she’s getting a manager, whatever. The Dark Order story with Colt Cabana advanced and is genuinely compelling at this point. The match was good and I can’t wait to see where they decide to take it. Finally, the main event was an absolute grand slam. Jericho and Cassidy delivered one of my favorite matches of the year and the near fall with the Codebreaker made me jump up in shock. Unfortunately, I can’t go higher than an A- for this show, but we’ll see what happens with the stacked card for Fight for the Fallen next week. Class dismissed.

One More Thing:

Lance Archer has a strange feud going with Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss. After Janela was already in the ring, Archer came out and threw Kiss at Janela. The Bad Boy doesn’t fight clean, so he did what he could to stun Archer and tried to bring out some weapons before referee Paul Turner put a stop to it and allowed Archer to turn the match into a one-sided affair. Janela had some signs of life and benefitted from Kiss being out there, but the outcome was never in doubt as Archer won with a Blackout through a table that Janela set up outside.

Javier Melo is a writer of Pro Wrestling for Full Press Coverage and co-host of the Crossbody of Work podcast. Follow Javier on Twitter @JMeloSports.

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