LogFAQs > #953847463

AEW Dark 21-05-11

Eh, weird introduction for this episode where Taz and Excalibur are talking about casual Tuesday. Otherwise it was another nearly 2-hour episode (1hr58min >_<). They could have trimmed that by getting rid of a match or two that added nothing to the program.

Moxley & Kingston v some debuting job team. Something chocolate or another. They start by ambushing the two before the starting bell. It was a ridiculously short match.

Three Dork Order members vs three jobbers not from the Dork Order. Idk, Andrew Palace has a lot of personality, but hes lousy. I watched maybe a minute then skipped the rest.

Backstage interview with Diamante. Not much of a promo. I guess shes trying to hype her fight against Kris Statlander. When did Diamante become a job gal?

Lance Archer v jobber (Angel Fashion). I also couldnt make out half of what Jake was saying over the crowd noise, etc. Lance Archer once again looked like a monster. It just reminds me how much of a joke it is that Kenny Omega is AEW champ. At any rate, its a match that should have ended fast, but they made it competitive which makes Archer look like crap. He should have just no-sold everything then delivered a finisher.

QT, Comarado, and Salolo (?) v three jobbers, including Ryzin (who Im not sure why is just being used as a jobber since hes got a cool look. And other than not being able to throw a great punch (which is a running theme in AEW), hes pretty decent.

Apparently Ryzin plans to do weddings. Good for him.
https://www.ryzin.tv/

Interestingly, his site mentions hes an author but I cant seem to find any reference on it to anything hes written, which is weird given how much self-promotion hes got going on there. Gotta respect that hustle.

Varsity Blonds accompanied by Julia Hart v two debuting job guys. Using Julia Hart, who has a cheerleader gimmick, as a valet makes sense. It was enough to get me to bother with a VB match. Theyre not terrible or anything, but they are boring as hell. Plus the gimmick (which I understand is a nod to Pillmans dads tag team of the same name) is meh.

Willow Nightingale v Diamante. Oh, I guess Diamante isnt fighting Kris tonight? Maybe thats for Dynamite then. At any rate, I find Diamante boring. I honestly cant say if shes talented or not, because I to tune out during all of her matches. Willow is like twice Diamantes size, being a lot taller and far heavier. Some real clumsy shit like this match, including Willow just standing in position waiting to swing Diamante. And the Code Red looked fake as shit. Okay, Diamante is bad.

Dante Martin v jobber (Aaron Frye). Not sure what the hell was going on (whether it was just my computer or what), but match looked sporadically choppy, like it was on 1.5x speed (and it kept up for the matches after? I tried reloading the page without any luck). Other than that, it was a pretty decent match. Aaron Frye whose physique reminds me of Booker Ts seems talented.

Nyla Rose vs Ashley DAmbiose. Im so sick of Vicky Guerrera. She has go away heat rather than heel heat.

Backstage interview with Dork Order. Mighty midget gave a try-hard promo. Alex Reynolds was meh. Evil Uno sounds goofy as fuck.

Ryan Nemeth & Cesar Bononi v jobbers. Whole stable (now called Pretty Picture? Although they were the Wingmen at one point? Idk, they also talked about that earlier) were there, including Peter Avalon getting his ring entrance despite not wrestling (I think hes probably injured?). Avalon is such a fucking waste. Otherwise the group seems to have a new entrance theme, which I kinda like. Im not sure how I feel about the stable, which is basically just *another* job stable. Their comedy vignettes suck, but at least they feel less generic than they did when they were singles or in tags. Nemeth and Cesar arent a bad team, and I guess Avalon being ringside isnt the worst thing in the world so long as he doesnt wrestle (or cost them matches, at which point youd wonder why theyd want him there)

Kris Statlander v Julia Hart. I dont know why the Best Friends and Pockets come ringside for her. Its weird because you have 3 people ringside for 1 wrestler. Kris has a decent ring entrance and a cool look. Julia is adorable, but she basically does nothing. She very clearly cant wrestle, and I dont mean that in the usual sense where Im saying somebody is awful, I mean she doesnt seem to have any training or experience. Kris did a better job of covering for that than Kilyn King did last week. And she even stops to adjust her hair when Kris has her overhead and is readying to drop her onto the mat. Wtf? Take her off tv (so to speak). Shes not ready. They should stick to having her as an on-screen valet until she can at least do the bare minimum. This is embarrassing.

Jungle Boy (w/Marko Runt) v Marty Casaus. (59:01) Id rather see JB come out alone than with Marko. Otherwise Marty mugged for the camera. Hes a bigger, kinda tough-looking dude. Decent match. I enjoyed how Marty teased a suicida but didnt follow through and then JB gets back in the ring and does a suicida. Maybe my favorite match of the night. Casaus seems solid, and JB is generally good.

Swole & Velvet v MK Twins. Kind of like a palette cleanse. After a reasonably good match, we get a kinda crappy one. Kilynn King was there in street clothes, but with her ink. Im guessing they must be filming Dark and Elevation on the same day or something, given that Kilynn was ringside on Elevation (and I happened to notice Madis face in the crowd during this match). At any rate, the match felt like a stepdown after the last one.

JD Drake v 10 (Dork Order). JD Drake looks like shit, but so far hes been half-decent as a wrestler. If he was bigger, he could get away with that lousy physique. Instead, he needs to lose some weight and pick up some muscle definition. The first two lockups they had JD and 10 evenly matched, which looked neat. Despite the fact both guys look like shit, it was an okay match other than JD botching a roundhouse kick.

The Acclaimed v Nutella & Sonny. No. Just no. I listened to Max Castors pre-match diss then skipped the match.

Brian Cage v Bear Bronson. I hadnt seen Bear Country on either Dark or Elevation in a while and had been wondering what was going on. Im guessing Luchasaurus must have injured one of them during that Dynamite match some weeks ago (and I should mention that, prior to the match, I saw a AEW Botches clip from a previous match where Lucha damn near dropped one of them on their neck) and, as the match starts, the announcers confirmed that suspicion when they mentioned that Bear Boulder (the bigger, stronger of the two) was injured and will be out of commission for a few months. Otherwise I like Cage and I like Bear Country, so the match had two points in its favor off the bat. That said, there was a thing or two I didnt like, such as Bear dropping down on Cage but *not* turning that into a pin. At any rate, watching Bronson in singles kinda hammers home that he doesnt really work outside a tag team (whereas Boulder could work as a monster heel). At any rate, it was a match featuring two wrestlers I like and it more or less met expectations.

Hobbs v Mike Sydal. Good match-up. Hobbs was great. Mike Sydal was spotty in places.

Even with skipping, it was a long episode.

Oh, and on the subject of what wrestling used to be like (in the WWE anyway):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lplY3s_h2Nc

I miss shit like that. You had real giants of men fighting other larger than life men. Nowadays a lot of today's wrestlers are smaller than the managers back then. Granted, the interruption at the end of that was goofy.

---

(\/)(\/)|-|
There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.