Dark turns it up to 11 for Episode 100!

What a milestone for Dark classic, AEW’s original in-ring YouTube series! And to make it even wilder, JEEEOOOOON MOOOOXLEEEEY hits the ring!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• Six Man Tag: Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor & Wheeler Yuta VS The Wingmen; Cassidy, Taylor & Yuta win.
• PAC w/ Death Triangle VS Jack Evans w/ The Hardy Family Office; PAC wins.
• Tay Conti VS Kenzie Paige; Conti wins.
• Shawn Spears & Wardlow VS Capt. Shawn Dean & Fuego Del Sol; Spears & Wardlow win.
• Hikaru Shida VS Madi Maxx; Shida wins.
• The Lucha Bros VS Chaos Project; Lucha Bros win.
• 8 Man Tag: The Sydal Brothers & Varsity Blonds w/ Julia Hart VS The Acclaimed, Matt Hardy & The Blade w/ The Bunny; The Acclaimed, Hardy & Blade win.
• Leyla Hirsch VS Diamante; Hirsch wins.
• Jon Moxley VS Brick Aldridge; Moxley wins.
• Penelope Ford VS Reka Tehaka; Ford wins.
• Eddie Kingston VS Dante Martin; wins.

MY THOUGHTS

Just under 90 minutes with 11 matches, a great way to commemorate the milestone of hitting 100. Though there is controversy attached to this episode, though. It seems Caster’s aren’t screened because he apparently went too far with a line about Simone Biles and Duke college lacrosse. He’d been pushing the boundaries quite a bit, it was inevitable he’d cross the line. It is why they skip the entrances and just have it out in the 8 Man Tag, which was still very good. The Acclaimed and HFO still win out because Blade is going strong into his match with Christian Cage, but it was good that Jurassic Express ran them off as they were beating up Mike Sydal, As for The Acclaimed are, it’d make sense if the Varsity Blonds win their feud and go after the tag titles again.

A shame the Wingmen didn’t get to have their match on Elevation to shout out Wight wearing their shirt. But they were going to lose to Best Friends so it’s all fine. A very good opener there, and even Taz’s bit where he hates on Cassidy for wearing sunglasses indoors is hilarious given the irony. Great character work from everyone, and a great win for Best Friends. Jack Evans has a good promo before his match with Pac, and as many people as were ringside, they could’ve just had a Six Man. But both guys being so agile, this was an awesome 1v1, and of course Andrade shows up to confront Death Triangle but then not confront them.

Red Velvet has a good promo to naturally frame how her top five ranking puts her in the title hunt. And she’s finally given herself a nickname with The Chef, and that’s a great sign that she’s moving up. Conti has a really good match  with Kenzie Paige and gets a really good win. The Pinnacle’s Spears and Wardlow have a good match with Dean and Fuego, and it’s pretty funny that Spears has such a short temper he wants to use the chair and Wardlow is the voice of reason. It was over with Spears’ C4 on Fuego but The Pinnacle send a message to The Inner Circle and Jake Hager on commentary with the F10.

Great women’s division action, too. Shida had a good match, with Madi Maxx doing a great injury fake-out and a dodge of Shida’s chair springboard attack. But in the end, Shida wins to stay strong while outside of the title scene. Leyla VS Diamante was one I couldn’t really call, but it makes sense that Leyla would win to get momentum into the NWA Women’s Championship contender’s match on Dynamite. As such, it also makes sense Bunny would show up just to distract Leyla, and then for Big Swole to show up and keep Diamante from cheating. I feel like Leyla is winning on Dynamite to give us a legit technical classic with Serena Deeb.

Ford VS Tehaka was also a good match, but naturally the Superbad Girl wins to keep herself strong. I also like color science from Taz, yellow around red does make red look like a fiery orange. We got a very good tag match out of Lucha Bros and Chaos Project, and I appreciate that Serpentico got to show some of his lucha ability before defaulting to being Luther’s human weapon. Jon Moxley not being the main event was a surprise, but he and Brick Aldridge had a real good match. Jade Cargill and Mark Sterling of course have an appearance and promo to get in on the history of Dark 100. I am still completely expecting Cargill’s return to the ring will be her first loss.

Eddie Kingston and Dante Martin being the main event is great for Dante, especially with his brother, Darius, back on air with him. It was a great main event with Dante showing some new and even more amazing moves. That snap win from the Uraken was a great finish, but Kingston shows respect to the young star at the end. Top Flight has a bright future, it’ll be a great day when Darius is 100% again.

My score: 8.4/10