AEW welcomes back its FTW Champion, Ricky Starks!

The revolution will be televised! Ricky Starks’ finally back in action, and AEW Dark is absolutely pumped for it! Will the FTW Champion shake off the ring rust?

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• Thunder Rosa VS Nikita Knight; Rosa wins.
• Private Party w/ The Hardy Family Office VS JDX & Carlie Bravo; Private Party wins.
• Kiera Hogan VS Leila Grey; Kiera wins.
• Preston Vance w/ The Dark Order VS Brandon Gore; Vance wins.
• Adrian Jaoude & Cezar Bononi VS Ryzin & Jake St. Patrick; Jaoude & Bononi win.
• Lance Archer VS Arjun Singh; Archer wins.
• Ricky Starks w/ Hook VS Darius Lockhart; Starks wins.
• Evil Uno & Stu Grayson w/ The Dark Order VS Adrian Alanis & Liam Gray; Uno & Stu win.
• Julia Hart w/ The Varsity Blonds VS Reka Tehaka; Julia wins.
• Bear Country VS Jameson Ryan & Brick Aldridge; Bear Country wins.
• Matt Sydal & Dante Martin VS QT Marshall & Aaron Solo w/ Nick Comoroto; Sydal & Martin win.

QUICK NOTES

Great to see Ricky Starks is wrestling again after his extended time away with injury. This means good things for his delayed feud with Brian Cage, as well as the Team Taz feud with CM Punk. Good to see Bear Country in action together again, and I like that we’re seeing Adrian Jaoude in AEW. Him teaming with Cezar Bononi is a good move, they had time in NXT and honestly should’ve been utilized more. Also good to see the partnerships are strong as Kiera Hogan of Impact gets her AEW singles debut.

AFTER WATCHING

An hour and 12, still a good length and luckily NXT only being two hours, there’s more time after to get to this. Nice interview promo for Santana Garrett as she officially joins AEW. Diamante already calling her out is great, too, and they’ll have a good match next week to truly welcome Garrett to the roster. Kiera Hogan gets a strong win with that powerful roundhouse finisher. Jaoude & Bononi got a really good win as a duo, making for a good debut on Jaoude’s part. I hope this leads to a story with Jaoude and the Wingmen, I feel like that’d be a lot of fun. I love that Archer brutalized his opponent around the ring with it all being before the bell so that the official match was super short.

Little surprised Starks wasn’t the main event but at the same time, he was of course winning his return. Even so, he and Lockhart gave us a great halfway point of the show. Dark Order get good wins tonight, and it’s great for Julia Hart to be later on the card. Bear Country won in a big battle of hosses, but hopefully Bear Boulder isn’t hurt again. He seemed to have a hard time walking at the end, it’d be a shamed if he had to go on the injured list again. Given the big match Sydal & Dante have for Dynamite, it makes a lot of sense that they and The Factory get the main event. And also given that match on Dynamite, it makes a lot of sense for Sydal & Dante to win in big fashion for big momentum.