>>8257731This was bigger. Fandango was making his in-ring main roster debut, but he had two years of NXT under his belt (albeit with a different name and gimmick). And he'd been in the industry for over a decade (and WWE developmental for several years) by the time he got to NXT. Lastly, he'd had six months of build up with promo packages going into WM, and there was an actual feud with Jericho going in.
Action Andretti was making his TV debut and came into tonight with just four matches (only two of which were singles) in AEW, three of them on Dark: Elevation, and one on Dark, where he lost to QT Marshall back in October (his other singles match was a loss to Dante Martin in January). He's 24 and has only been wrestling professionally since 2019, mostly in MCW, with a handful of matches in CZW. The match tonight had no build, he didn't get an entrance on TV, and the production crew didn't even get the right nameplate up for him (they put up Jericho's while the camera was on Andretti). Jericho was the ROH champion until last Saturday.
This had all of the earmarks of a squash match. Instead they put on a banger and we got the shock upset. People were immediately comparing it to X-Pac pinning Razor in '93.
