7 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite: Fyter Fest (13 July)

4. Jericho & Kingston Strike Contrasts

It wasn't the classic, all-timer Chris Jericho that its spitter perhaps wanted on the final week before his Barbed Wire Everywhere match with Eddie Kingston, but the feud was well-served on Fyter Fest's first night regardless.

The paragraph above shouldn't be taken as a suggestion that Jericho was subpar here. He wasn't. He was very, very good. Dressed immaculately, he claimed to speak as a living legend and Kingston's superior, not one of his gimmicks, deliberately playing into the gimmick at the same time. He then proceeded to do a grand job of promoting the match over several minutes, running through all of the people who have been hurt through their association with Eddie, revealing his own history with barbed wire, and announcing his reprisal of the 'Painmaker' gimmick for next week.

But while Jericho got the red-carpet entrance, in-ring focus, and a runtime spanning several minutes, Eddie was restricted to a short, snarling backstage response. This works to widen the gap between the two. Robbed of deserved airtime, Kingston, who usually acknowledges these things anyway, now has even more reason to make Jericho bleed. Stood beside Ruby Soho, her broken hand, Ortiz, and his newly-shorn head, he was as believable as ever.