YES! YES! YES! Universal Studios is still Dark!

AEW continues in Universal Studios, and it brings out the stars! Bryan Danielson makes his Dark debut against #ExtraTalented Aaron Solo!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• Bobby Fish VS Invictus Khash; Fish wins.
• Riho VS Xtina Kay; Riho wins.
• Eddie Kingston VS Jack Evans; Kingston wins.
• Dante Martin w/ Lio Rush VS JDX; Martin wins.
• Tiger Ruas VS DJ Brown; Ruas wins.
• Diamante VS Skyler Moore; Diamante wins.
• Preston Vance w/ The Dark Order VS Shayne Stetson; Vance wins.
• Too Fast Too Fuego VS Kidd Bandit & Dean Alexander; Too Fast Too Fuego wins.
• Bryan Danielson VS Aaron Solo w/ The Factory; Danielson wins.

QUICK NOTES

Getting Bryan Danielson on the show is a good way to try and bring Dark back up to those early days we just relived in those three hour fan favorite specials, but of course he’ll win. “Tiger Ruas” is in fact Arturo Ruas with a new stage name, it’s even his Twitter name. “Too Fast Too Fuego” is Fuego Del Sol and then just Cody Rhodes wearing a lucha mask. Not sure why they’re doing that, or why they didn’t think to do this sooner as some kind of “Cody soul searching” story before Cody VS Malakai III on Dynamite. The pacing in the Cody stories continues to be really badly handled in my opinion.

AFTER WATCHING

Dark’s back up over an hour, so the matches got decent time. Bobby Fish has a good match but a great bit of shade thrown at CM Punk to hype up their match. Sammy Guevara and Ethan Page making a surprise appearance to hype up the Inner Circle VS Men of the Year story was good, and I like that they play off the element of relatable when it comes to the wrestlers and the crowds. And of course Scorpio Sky, Santana & Ortiz get in on this. And I forgot this was the first time Jack Evans has been on air since the Hair VS Hair match. Fresh faced Evans still has all the same mouth and of course Kingston wins going into the next round of the AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament.

Good showings for Xtina, JDX, etc. but we get the usual Dark card of the established names getting wins. Well, DJ Brown didn’t get much, Ruas got a one-hit KO. Ruas has a good promo, I’m sure he’ll get a few more quick wins to really establish that strong and legit martial arts background. Good promo from Lio and Dante to hype up their Rampage match with the Sydal Brothers. Lio throws shade on the Sydals and Dante does good to look conflicted. It will be the moment of truth in that Rampage match if Dante goes all in on Lio’s investment or not.

Adam Cole getting an interview appearance was quite the surprise, he has a promo to put everyone on notice, and him being in ring gear implies he could have his own Dark match in the coming weeks. Jade Cargill and Mark Sterling have their own good promo to hype up her story in the TBS Championship Tournament. Tone Nese calling himself the hottest free agent is him putting himself over, I don’t think anyone was exactly marking out to see Nese in AEW, but he’ll be another solid part of the midcard. Calling out Fuego, that might be a pretty good match.

One thing that is impressive about Cody being Fuego 2 is that they managed to cover up the neck tattoo but forgot about the “Dream” tattoo. I do like that commentary was playing around with it, though. I still don’t get what this is about but whatever, everybody in the crowd got behind Cody having fun and goofing around. Bryan of course got the main event, he got a good match out of Solo and of course got himself a good win going into the next round of the AEW Title Eliminator Tournament, just like Kingston.