8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite: Fyter Fest Night 2 (Jul 8)

1. Orange Cassidy Breaks Through In A Superb Main Event

Orange Cassidy is incredible at that for which he is buried.

Really, that's the beauty of the punchline: he isn't just really good when he tries, he's an elite-tier professional wrestler, excelling within an elite-tier global standard, and this was an elite-tier professional wrestling match.

It was a different match to that which one might have expected. Less of a meme match and more of a dream match, it retained enough of the irresistible personality of the dynamic - Cassidy was blinded with orange juice before the comeback, Jericho was priceless in his impersonations during the heat - but never to the detriment of the serious core of the story. If the Revolution match proved Orange Cassidy could hang, this match proved he could hang at the main event level.

This was a match devoid totally of kitsch.

It was a literal blood feud. Cassidy only threatened to lean on his comedy act to lull Jericho into a Superkick, and what a goddamn spot that was. It was a moment of searing high drama, but it was more than that. Orange Cassidy is the wrestler, apparently, who makes a mockery of AEW's early, sports-oriented messaging.

But this wasn't so much a move as a play from a wrestler who, in the sense of the kayfabe he apparently breaks, is one of wrestling's most intelligent strategists. Cassidy sold and registered everything he did here immaculately, and this tremendous breakthrough performance was structured perfectly by Chris Jericho in masterful big match form. It was so well put together: Cassidy, mat wrestling dynamo, had the beating of Jericho, who had to rely on all of his dark arts to get through the challenge.

A triumph of a match to cap off a triumph of a show. If Revolution was the greatest big-time PPV in an age, Fyter Fest was the best B-level PPV in an age, too.