AEW Dark is a gift of the gods!

Brian Cage “welcomes” Marty Casaus to AEW, but will he squish a moth in the Dark? Plus, the Hardy Family Office’s war with the Dark Order escalates!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• The Acclaimed VS D3 & Fuego Del Sol; The Acclaimed win.
• The Sydal Brothers VS David Ali & Aaron Frye; The Sydal Brothers win.
• Dante Martin VS Andrew Palace; Martin wins.
• The Varsity Blondes VS Duke Davis & Ganon Jones; The Varsity Blondes win.
• Brian Cage w/ Team Taz VS Marty Casaus; Cage wins.
• Leyla Hirsch VS Renee Michelle; Hirsch wins.
• Lance Archer w/ Jake the Snake VS Jake St. Patrick; Archer wins.
• Diamante VS Raychell Rose; Diamante wins.
• Lee Johnson VS Will Allday; Johnson wins.
• Penelope Ford w/ Kip Sabian VS Ashley D’Amboise; Ford wins.
• Colt Cabana w/ The Dark Order VS Cole Karter; Cabana wins.
• KiLynn King VS Dani Jordyn; King wins.
• Tag Careers on the Line: SoCal Uncensored VS Liam Gray & Adrian Adonis; SCU wins and remains a tag team.
• Six Man Tag: Evil Uno, Stu Grayson & Preston Vance w/ the Dark Order VS The Blade & Private Party w/ The Hardy Family Office; The Dark Order wins.

MY THOUGHTS

Clearly, I’m going to be doing things differently for AEW Dark: Elevation on Mondays, and also Dark classic on Tuesdays. There will NOT be a Play By Play section, just Official Results and My Thoughts. The number of matches always changes week to week, and therefore the runtime of the videos (that are also commercial free) also changes week to week. The overlap of AEW’s Elevation and Dark with WWE’s Monday Night Raw and Tuesday NXT really complicates things, so this is just the most efficient way for me to do all of it, because I don’t want to miss out just in case something exciting does happen.

The Acclaimed putting in work with being on both Elevation and Dark classic. Caster didn’t need to cross the line with his rap this time since this is just Dark and he was only against D3 & Fuego. Of course The Acclaimed wins again, it was only D3 & Fuego. The Sydal Brothers weren’t advertised from what I remember, but naturally they win to keep momentum going for their match with the Young Bucks on Dynamite. The Double Bow ‘n’ Arrow was a unique spot, I’m sure the Sydals will try that with the Bucks at some point. Martin VS Palace was another surprise, Palace shows decent character work and good ring skill, but of course Martin wins to keep Top Flight going while Darrius still recovers.

The only thing confusing with Griff Garrison & Brian Pillman Jr. is, is it The Varsity Blondes or Varsity Blonds? I might still just insist on the first spelling, even though both are clearly acceptable. Their finisher should be called The Varsity Bomb. They’re in the top five per AEW’s ranking system, but I’m not sure they’ll even get a title match against the Bucks. There really should be a story in AEW where the fifth place contender(s) of a division acts as gatekeeper(s) to the other teams, and I feel like Varsity Blond(e)s could totally make that work.

AEW should really think about referencing Lucha Underground. Even after releasing Ivelisse, they added Marty “The Moth” and have so many other wrestlers formerly on Lucha Underground. Cage VS Casaus was a good reunion of guys who were on LU, definitely watch. Casaus has size to match Cage, but of course Cage wins going into his match with Hangman and while building the story with Ricky Starks. Leyla is #LEGIT putting in the work on both Elevation and Dark, and while Renee Michelle got her shots in, of course Leyla wins. Depending on what happens between Britt Baker and Hikaru Shida, either of them against Leyla is going to be #LEGIT, too.

While we’re at it, of course Archer wins. He’s got a story with Sting and others going, he’s going to build so much momentum. His opponents trying to get the drop on him is great because he gets to beat them up before the matches, and then rough them up during the match. The “Hellicoaster,” a ripcord to scrapbuster, is a great move, and it gives Archer an option if he doesn’t want to use the Blackout on a bigger opponent. Diamante had a good match with debuting Raychell Rose, this helps Diamante build towards her 1v1 match with Leyla next week, but I’m thinking Leyla wins that to build herself up even more.

Big Shotty Lee gets himself a good win before the big Six Man Tag of Nightmare Family and The Factory, and the fisherman ushigoroshi is a strong finisher. QT Marshall showing up was a great surprise, as was Dustin making the save. Dustin still has the bull rope and cattle bell, I still want there to be a Bunkhouse Match 2 for this feud. Penelope gets a good win before taking on Kris Statlander, that’ll be a good one, too. I’m surprised Colt Cabana was on the card, he hasn’t had a singles match in awhile. Perhaps Dark Order can have Cabana as a back-up singles division contender.

“The Real Mean Girl” Dani Jordyn didn’t have her burn book, but the fake out with the tiara was clever. The match itself was very strong, but I figured King would win in the end. The trio of King, Swole & Velvet are all on a roll, but it really only matters if there’s another trio that steps up. Maybe Vickie Guerrero can get Jade Cargill and one other woman to be Vicious Vixens and we can get some strong Six Woman Tags going. Hell, give us AEW Women’s Tag Team Championships. Impact has those, WWE has those, even NXT has those now. The medals got trashed because Ivelisse got herself let go, so just bring belts out and give us another women’s tag tournament to crown champs.

SCU wins again, as they’re #1 in the AEW Tag Division ranks. Sadly, they have dropped the ball getting the drama up in their storyline of, “If we lose, we break up.” They’ve barely looked like they were going to lose ever on Dark or Elevation, and so far haven’t really faced anyone who could push them to that limit. We all knew they were going to go against the champions before their next loss, but they needed to make it seem like that wasn’t the case, and they just haven’t. It’s as simple as having SCU take on the other top contenders, from Jurassic Express to Butcher & Blade to Best Friends. I’m not feeling the energy, and I watch everything, so how is someone who only watches Dynamite supposed to feel it?

We got good promos from the Hardy Family Office and the Dark Order, especially with Uno putting over his teammates. Between tonight and Elevation last night, the main event opponents getting to give promos to hype things up is a smart strategy for these shows. The match itself was very good, as expected, but also got roughly 12 minutes like Elevation’s main event. Blade and Private Party worked well together and used a lot of great Heel tactics, and I did like that Cabana and the others were there to counteract the managers cheating. It was a great surprise for Dark Order to win here, but I suppose they would have to get a big win over HFO at some point to keep this feud going. Still expecting the blow-off to be a 5v5, Hangman leading the charge while Hardy leads his faction.

My Score: 8.1/10