The 4 August edition of Dark was an easier show to watch. Not as stacked as recent episodes that have taken place following the loss of crowds, this episode looked to continue and build on feuds rather than flood fans with never ending predictable squashes. To be honest, this is the first episode of Dark that your’s truly has watched since June due to the amount of matches announced for All Elite Wrestling’s secondary show being overwhelming. With only seven matches on Dark this week, it still presented quite of bit of squash, but also included some bits of story developing steak in between.
Scorpio Sky def. Will Hobbs
Good little match, short as it may be. The story of this was in the post match promo. Scorpio Sky got on the mic to say that he has been dubbed the “King of AEW Dark.” He explains how he is one of only two men to pin Chris Jericho in AEW and says that Dark will not be his ceiling for long.
Serviceable for one third of the SoCal boys. I hope soon that my prediction of Scorpio Sky going on a singles run while Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian go on one last run as the Addiction comes true soon. SCU has run its course – the stable became such four months short of three years ago – and it is very much time for a change.
The Gunn Club def. Serpentico & Aaron Solow
Look what we have here! Austin Gunn finally in action again. Par for the course, though, he is in tag team action with his father, Billy. An alright match built on the rookie, Austin, taking the beating in the match before building to whatever a hot tag is known as in these times to Billy. In the end, Billy sent Serpentico to the outside before Austin tags in and hits a Fame-Ass-Er on Aaron Solow, then hitting an arm drag neckbreaker for the win.
Nice to see Austin Gunn in action again, even if he still had to be put in the ring with Billy. This was only Austin’s third AEW match ever and all three matches have been tags with his dad. I get the point, Austin as a rookie needs his dad’s help to build a name, but he really should not need his father to get over. Hopefully, Austin will start getting some singles matches under his belt soon and will being to outshine his father rather than settle for vice versa.
Sonny Kiss & Joey Janela def. The Initiative (Brandon Culter & Peter Avalon) w/ Leva Bates
The first competitive match of the show and first match with some story behind it, Kiss & Janela were able to pick up the win after an electric chair/senton combination.
This match had quite a bit of action. Good parts took place such as Leva Bates hitting Janela with a Sliced Bread from the outside by using the post and a surprising bit as Peter Avalon tries to save his partner by catching him in a fireman’s carry position before Kiss used Avalon to hit Cutler with a neckbreaker and knock both men down. Good match to continue the story of the never winning Initiative. Second best match on the card.
Abadon def. KiLynn King
I have no thoughts on this match. Not a fan of Abadon or whatever the state of the women’s division is at the moment. I could write up something, but I hardly remember a thing that happened in this match.
Jack Evans def. QT Marshall w/ Allie
The second bit of story on the show came with the return of Jack Evans (and his partner, Angelico) against the man with a very manipulative heart, QT Marshall. This match was aggressively alright. There were a lot of distractions coming from the outside before Evans was able to roll up Marshall for the winning pin after a ref distraction from Allie led to Angelico nailing Marshall with a roundhouse kick.. Post match, TH2 (the Hybrid 2) did a post match beat down on QT Marshall before Dustin Rhodes came out to run them off.
I am into this QT/Allie story; not into the way the match went. I have never been a fan of distraction finishes, and I will not let AEW ever slide with the same type of booking. This match may as well have been Angelico vs QT Marshall, because it felt like he did more than Jack Evans in this match.
FTR def. Griff Garrison & Brian Pillman Jr.
This was the best match on the card. Much of this match was FTR doing what they do best: smart tag team wrestling. They isolated Pillman for the longest time of the match, and the funniest part came just after the “hot tag” to Garrison. Just as Garrison ran in for the hot attack, FTR quickly caught him with the Goodnight Express for the win.
Great match with an ending that really popped me into laughter. This made me feel better for my opponents in 2k games, because I always cut off the hot tag to continue my own winning ways and never let my opponents get on offense. In all seriousness, this was fun and it was nice to see FTR continue to enforce their view of tag team wrestling.
The Butcher & The Blade def. Private Party
I really could not tell you much of what happened here. The only good part of this was the finish, and even that was flubbed a bit. This is the exact match that shows how bad wrestling can be without the crowd, and we are already five months into this time of crowdless wrestling. This was disappointing after the great showing Butcher & Blade had with the Young Bucks. Private Party still are not anywhere near the top level that the company seemingly wants them to be. Only time will tell with these two teams. It really feels like the last two matches should have been switched.
Tune in here on Bodyslam.net tomorrow at 8/7c as I will be bringing you live coverage of AEW Dynamite. Also stay tuned for a preview of tomorrow’s show to present what is to be looked forward to.
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