On Wednesday’s edition of the Road to Fyter Fest, there were a pair of announcements made by All Elite Wrestling.
There was a vignette filmed with Shawn Spears that was well-produced where he is overlooking the city and questioning if he made the right call (leaving WWE) and ends by stating, ‘you’re damn right I did’. It ended with Cody sitting in the boardroom with Nik Sobic, who was identified as the VP of Business Operations and been an executive within the Jacksonville Jaguars. They announced they had signed Spears with Cody stating he could be a player/coach, an eventual coach, and a ‘good hand’.
They also added a three-way match for Fyter Fest with Nyla Rose vs. Riho vs. Yuka Sakazaki and brings the card to a total of seven matches. The show takes place on Saturday, June 29th at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. Below is the updated card:
*Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks vs. Pentagon Jr., Fenix & TBA
*Jon Moxley vs. Joey Janela
*Cody vs. Darby Allin
*Hangman Page vs. MJF vs. Jimmy Havoc vs. Jungle Boy
*CIMA vs. Christopher Daniels
*Riho vs. Yuka Sakazaki vs. Nyla Rose
*Michael Nakazawa vs. Alex Jebailey in a Hardcore match on the pre-show
I understand why they do it but I wonder how many times they’ll go with “I used to be in the WWE but I left” as a way to promote a new signing from the WWE. It’s been Cody’s gimmick since he left and as far as AEW signings they’ve done it with Moxley and now Shawn Spears. Maybe they can get away with a couple more but after that it’ll come across as very lazy.
Well, at this point, all of the talent came from somewhere else. NJPW, ROH, WWE, indies… so until they start making their own talent, you might as well go with it.
Also, I like this as an alternative to “this guy didn’t exist outside of our programming”. Granted there’s a fine line between “this man has a history and a backstory & we’re not going to insult our audience by pretending otherwise” and “WWE sucks & I’m glad I’m here & not the place that sucks”. I have faith that AEW will figure out how to navigate those murky waters, though.
Acknowledging a wrestler’s past is fair enough and is something I prefer in comparison to pretending they didn’t exist before signing but there’s a difference between acknowledging a wrestler’s past and sticking a label on their head that says “I chose to leave WWE”. The latter comes across as small time if done too many times. It may have a “he’s sticking it to the man” feel to it the first couple of times but they’ll need to be more inventive going forward in my opinion.
