Below is a very detailed onsite report from Wrestleview reader Brett Farmer who attended Wednesday night’s AEW Dynamite Fyter Fest, Rampage and Dark Elevation tapings at the Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia. Brett took the time to share his experience at the tapings.
There are no spoilers for Rampage or Dark Elevation.
Current events in Savannah that impact crowd attendance. Arena itself was finished, parking at arena is not, roads entering and exiting the arena aren’t finished, one way in one way out or walk several blocks. These delays are related to covid impacting the city in the past 2 years.
While the fans sitting in the floor where young adults, upon looking and walking around a big portion of the fans in attendance where middle age with their children, if I had to guess these were crocket era fans. The group I sat around specifically did not recognize many of the talents, just the mainstream media wrestlers. This crowd seemed to be invested in the work in the ring rather than story, promos, high spots, etc. Not a typical rambunctious crowd but not unappreciative by any means unfortunately that doesn’t come through on the broadcast when I caught the west coast feed later.
Crowd was very happy to see Leon Ruff (Formally of NXT) on AEW Dark Elevation. It was interesting to have fun match with some comedy throughout the entire match rather on a AEW program, slight departure from the norm for AEW.
The TNT championship match with orange Cassidy vs Wardlow was very well received by the crowd. It felt like the crowd wanted Orange to be a hair more serious like in some of his previous PPVs. But, they seemed to quickly accept and appreciate what they got. Was a lot of fun, everyone knew this was a match between to faces and the love was spread well between the two. Although, there was a moment with a near fall that Orange out matched Wardlow in terms of fans being loud.
Jerichos Promo – Jericho proved once again why he is likely the top 2 or 3 promos in terms of active wrestlers. Fans gave him the love that the future Hall of Famer deserves, however the Savannah crowd very quickly assumed their roll in the show as Jericho’s adversary, this was a good wrestling crowd they bought into the show and played their roll.
Based on the World Title Eliminator match, Claudio Castagnoli vs Jake Hagar, and the Triple or Nothing Tag team match. I have determined that AEW’s sound design for their TV broadcast isn’t that great and doesn’t do the crowd justice, not sure if that’s a AEW thing or a WarnerMedia thing, bottom line broadcast audio doesn’t do the Savannah crowd justice. Don’t get me wrong the crowd was definitely quiet at certain points of the show and most of Rampage for other reasons.
Keith Lee was definitely the highlight of the night for the entire arena. Everyone could tell this match was important to him. He was wrestling with more passion than normal and it showed. Now, the group of people around me were not dedicated wrestling fans and they expressed confusion throughout the match questioning how the tag match was enforced as compared to others and noticing some teams followed rules of tag team wrestling far less than others and they couldn’t understand why. However, despite this confusion this was the match of the night for the section I was in as well as the whole arena.
Lastly, Rampage needs to have two hours and be live. 4 hours of Dark Elevation, Dynamite, and Rampage was a lot. And compared to the card on Dynamite I was less interested in Rampage outside of Dark Order vs House of Black. Rampage didn’t start until after 10:30 PM and the only filler we had between was Keith Lee’s emotional revelation that his best friend since 1998 had just been diagnosed with stage 4 Colon Cancer and he was driving to see him immediately after the show. Crowd was very sympathetic and supportive.
Matches on the card for Rampage were very solid. By the end of Rampage what was left of the crowd had found their second wind again. Show closed with a brief thank you and goodbye from Hookhausen and Tony Kahn.
Crowd dwindled to around 2/3 full for rampage mostly the fans on the floor left and a few pockets on the first above ground level. While Dynamite was closer to 5/6s full int total with the first bottom section full and the 2nd top section closed and curtains shut. This crowd was a older crowd who was happy to be a part of the show and knew their roll and played along. Older than normal I would guess and as a result less vocal or loud, but being in the room it had the energy of a big night.