Stuck between All Elite Wrestling’s first event, Double or Nothing, and the sequel to the groundbreaking All In event — and just before Fight For The Fallen, the show that features the Rhodes Brothers vs. the Young Bucks up against an NXT-flavored Evolve event on WWE Network — lies “Fyter Fest.”
The event, whose name parodies the infamous Fyre Festival that you heard about in multiple documentaries, is a collaboration between All Elite Wrestling and CEO Fighting Game Championships. If you missed the Road to Fyter Fest series, here’s Cody (Rhodes) explaining the relationship between Kenny Omega, competitive gaming, and the idea of people who love fighting games getting the chance to realize that professional wrestling is the thing they love, come to life.
Since the event is on Saturday — we’ll be here with results and an open discussion thread, since it and its Buy In pre-show are airing for free on B/R Live — we thought we’d give you a run down on what you should expect to see, and the basics of what you need to know.
The most important of the Buy In matches is a triple threat tag team match where the winning team moves on to All Out for a shot at a first round bye in the upcoming AEW Tag Team Championship Tournament. You’ve got the Best Friends, whose entrance video should tell you everything you need to know about them, taking on the urban daredevils Private Party and cagey veterans Scorpio Sky and Kazarian of So Cal Uncensored.
The wording on the stipulation is a little abstruse, since the winners move on to presumably have another match, and that’s the match that actually wins them something, but I guess there’s only so much you can do when your weekly TV show doesn’t start until October. Regardless, this should be action packed, occasionally funny, and the highlight of the Buy In. And if I’m making a guess, does it make sense for anyone other than SCU to get a bye in a tag tournament? Come on.
“It’s JEBAILEY!” — Michael Cole
Also happening on the Buy In is the deadly serious hardcore match confrontation between Michael Nakazawa, a Japanese man whose entire wrestling style revolves around him applying way too much body oil, and Alex Jebailey, wrestling fan and founder of CEO. This should be nothing but goofy, oily shenanigans, and if Jebailey doesn’t throw a fireball and a jumping uppercut at some point, what are we even doing here?
Look for Nakazawa to win, because, you know, he’s a wrestler. There’s a chance Jebailey’s going to rip off his own face to reveal a skull and burn Nakazawa alive in his own oil, though, so look out for that.
Crazy MAX explodes!
If you’ve been watching independent and Japanese wrestling since the late ’90s, this is a dream match for you. It’s CIMA, the earliest ace of Toryumon, Dragon Gate, and occasional cruiserweight tag team matches on WCW Monday Nitro, against Christopher Daniels, the ring general of SCU who used to wrestle with a full plate of curry on his forehead. Well, his friend did.
CIMA was Daniels’ mentor in Michinoku Pro, and now they’re having a one-on-one match to follow up their tag team confrontation from Double or Nothing. This is your dark horse for match of the night, since there aren’t many people on the AEW roster with more experience and know-how than these two. I’m taking CIMA to win, but it could go either way.
The easiest match on the card to predict (unless they throw us some serious curveballs) is one half of the upcoming match at All Out to crown the first ever AEW Champion, Hangman Adam Page, in a fatal four-way against Jungle Boy, MJF, and Jimmy Havoc.
If you aren’t familiar with these guys, Page is the Elite member and former New Japan Pro Wrestling star possibly most notable in the Being The Elite universe for getting into a dick-based feud with Joey Ryan, literally murdering him, being haunted by a pair of talking boots, and then being stalked by a reborn Joey and like a dozen penis druids. Wrestling’s great. He’s facing Chris Jericho for the championship, so it’d be crazy to see him lose here. The only way he could, reasonably, is if MJF scores a cheap victory to set up Page’s first rivalry post-championship match. MJF is everything you’ve ever seen a heel wrestler do crammed into one guy.
Going for the surprise win are Jungle Boy, the son of the late Luke Perry who I guess was abandoned in the jungle at some point and grew up as a little Tarzan, and Jimmy Havoc, a dirty sweaty goth who might incidentally flip out and try to death match somebody.
Speaking of death matches and maybe killing somebody in the ring, one of the most anticipated matches on the card is the first AEW match for the former Dean Ambrose, Jon Moxley, who showed up at the end of Double or Nothing to attack everybody. He’s itching to get violent, so his first match is against Joey Janela, a legitimately fearless and crazy vagabond dirtbag who says he wants to die in the ring so his name will live on in infamy. This was recently made an “unsanctioned match,” just in case that happens.
We’re not sure if anything’s going to be as bloody as what Cody and Dustin Rhodes delivered at DON, but don’t look at us if one of these dudes leaves the ring in a body bag. And by, “one of these dudes,” we mean Joey.
(Please don’t die, Joey Janela.)
As for Cody, he’s going up against another young star looking to make a name for himself, Darby Allin. Allin paints his face like that because he believes he’s half dead inside, which you can learn about at length in the second episode of Road to Fyter Fest.
The story is that Cody probably shouldn’t be taking a high profile singles match against a hungry young competitor between his match with Dustin and his upcoming match with the Young Bucks at Fight For The Fallen, and that he has everything to lose, while Darby has nothing to lose. Should be interesting to see what they come up with, but Cody will probably stay on a roll into the birth of the weekly shows.
The women’s division will be represented at Fyter Fest in a triple threat between Magical Girl Yuka Sazakaki, 21-year old 13-year veteran Riho, and Native Beast Nyla Rose.
Brandi Rhodes turned the last AEW women’s triple threat into a fatal four-way with the last minute addition of the goddamn Awesome Kong, but swears there’ll be no more meddling, and this will actually be a triple threat. So look for Brandi Rhodes to randomly show up at the beginning and add, oh, I don’t know, Bull Nakano?
Finally there’s your bonkers main event, which really only needs me to list the competitors: Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Bros. (Rey Fenix and whatever you wanna call Pentagon Jr.) and Laredo Kid. I’m guessing you’ll see 2-4 things you’ve never seen before here, and that poor mystery partner Laredo Kid gets eaten up by some sort of combination flip and piledriver and electric chair drop on his dome. Best of luck.
So there you have it, that’s everything to expect, minus whatever WWE Public Enemy #1 Chris Jericho shows up to do, at Fyter Fest.
Again, make sure you’re here @ UPROXX for the open thread, live results, and breaking news from the event. It starts up at 8:30 p.m. ET with the Buy-In pre-show at 7:30, and you can watch them both for free at B/R Live. So let’s do that!
