There’s still more in the aftermath of Blood & Guts!

Things aren’t slowing down in AEW! Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston are after the Young Bucks but they’ll settle for some Milk Chocolate tonight!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston VS Milk Chocolate; Moxley & Kingston win.
• Six Man Tag: The Dark Order VS Spencer Slade, Cole Karter & Andrew Palace; The Dark Order wins.
• Lance Archer w/ Jake the Snake VS Angel Fashion; Archer wins.
• Six Man Tag: The Factory VS RYZIN, Jake Logan & Rick Recon; The Factory win(s).
• Varsity Blonds w/ Julia Hart VS Jaylen Brandyn & Traevon Jordan; Varsity Blonds win.
• Diamante VS Willow Nightingale; Diamante wins.
• Dante Martin VS Aaron Frye; Martin wins.
• Nyla Rose w/ Vickie Guerrero VS Ashley D’Amboise; Nyla wins.
• Cezar Bononi & Ryan Nemeth w/ The Pretty Picture VS Liam Gray & Adrian Alanis; The Pretty Picture wins.
• Kris Statlander w/ Best Friends VS Julia Hart; Statlander wins.
• Jungle Boy VS Marty Casaus; Jungle Boy wins.
• Big Swole & Red Velvet VS The MK Twins; Swole & Velvet win.
• Preston Vance VS JD Drake w/ The Pretty Picture; Vance wins.
• The Acclaimed VS Sonny Kiss & Joey Janela; The Acclaimed win.
• Bear Bronson VS Brian Cage w/ Hook; Cage wins.
• “Powerhouse” Will Hobbs w/ Hook VS Mike Sydal; Hobbs wins.

MY THOUGHTS

Moxley & Kingston starting was a nice twist, and they just destroy Milk Chocolate! That is enough to make it a match to watch, and does make sense since Mox and Kingston already competed on Elevation, and Mox is going to need to be 100% for his IWGP US Championship match with Yuji Nagata on Dynamite. The “Violent Crown,” a lariat Half ‘n’ Half suplex combo, is a great team finisher for them, too. Dark Order does great as always, they had a great promo on the Hardy Family Office to build story, but Preston Vance’s mask becoming more and more The Joker has me torn. Yes, The Joker is iconic, he’s THE Batman villain, but it’s so much so that people wanting to reference him (and Harley Quinn by extension) is overdone.

Vance should try to reference some other masked character(s), like Rorschach or Ghost Face. I get it, Pentagon is running around as Venom on and off, and Venom is another frequently referenced character, but not nearly as much so it’s not grating yet. The “Pretty Picture”/”Wingmen” arguing about the name is hilarious stuff, too. I wonder if there will be a match of Bononi & Avalon VS Nemeth & Drake, winners decide which one is the real name. Nemeth & Bononi get a good win for themselves, Vance VS Drake was great and worthy of the “main event” that is basically the entire latter half of these YouTube shows. It was fourth to last, not a real main event, but still great.

Archer doing a springboard cannonball to start the assault was great. Murderhawk Monster squash matches are always fun, especially now that Jake the Snake is getting on commentary for them. I like the arrogance in The Factory that QT Marshall can just sit on the “throne” that is the steel steps on the ramp while watching his guys fight in a 3v2. At the same time, Comoroto is big and strong enough that he can make up for being down a man. QT’s aggression and using the Figure Four after definitely implies nothing is done between him and Cody, but I still wish he had gotten a grudge match with Dustin first.

Julia Hart joining Varsity Blonds is a good sign that the Blonds are moving up in the ranks in AEW as far as presentation. Best Friends made Kris Statlander an honorary member, Julia can be like the varsity cheerleader or something, and we can start getting some mixed tag/mixed trio matches. Brandyn & Jordan, aka Waves & Curls, got a really good showing for a Dark debut, but naturally the Blonds win and I still think their finisher should be the Varsity Bomb. Statlander of course beats Julia, but perhaps seeds have been planted for Best Friends VS Blonds? Diamante calling out Statlander is an interesting choice, but sometimes you just have to throw people together to get a feud going and see what comes of it.

Dante Martin is doing so well as a singles guy while waiting on brother Darrius to recover, I feel like Dante should get a TNT Championship opportunity. Of course, that’s only if Darby Allin retains on Dynamite, or if Miro chooses to be a workhorse champion like Darby. I just hope there isn’t some story where the brothers disagree and there’s a break-up because Top Flight can be a truly amazing team once they’re both running hot like that. JB VS Casaus was good, Casaus getting a good showing before he of course loses because it’s Jungle Boy! #Swolevet should be considered for whatever women’s tag concept AEW thinks of next, they and KiLynn King make a great group.

Again, the latter part of Dark being the “main event,” that is logically where the strength of the card lies. Vance VS Drake, probably Caster’s funniest rap yet, The Acclaimed VS Jersey’s Finest, and then Team Taz’s muscle closing in the last two matches, all great stuff. I almost feel like the tag match could’ve been the main event over the separate Team Taz matches, it was that damn good. Another surprise was that I thought Brian Cage would main event, because he beat Hangman Page and though the FTW Championship isn’t an official title of AEW, you’d think Cage would still be seen as the frontrunner of Team Taz. He also has a great match with Bear Bronson, who is solo right now with Boulder hurt.

And if multiple Team Taz members were on the card tonight, why didn’t they think to have them all enter together and just wait on their opponents to show up? Ricky Starks could’ve even been on commentary to further the passive aggressiveness he has towards Cage. Just a small thing that would’ve helped build story, so that instead of saying “It’s just AEW’s YouTube show,” fans can start to say, “AEW is genius for putting this on YouTube!”

My Score: 8.4/10