I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s a transitional move – today it’s wrestling’s favorite day of the week. What better way to prep for your Wednesday Night Wars than wolfing down the short stack and drizzled syrup that is an AEW Dark recap?
Last week on Dark…
Ricky Starks got a win on the board. Joey Janela and Lance Archer took their shirts off. Archer brought a pineapple to a leaf blower fight. Scorpio Sky debuted his new entrance music. Peter Avalon and Brandon Cutler bonded at the business end of stereo dropkicks. We didn’t recap it, but you can watch the whole episode for free on YouTube.
A bit on me
Hi everyone, Alison here. I’ve been a casual wrestling fan since sticks of gum came with Bret Hart and Dusty Rhodes trading cards. I started watching regularly around the time of Lucha Underground and NXT TakeOver: Dallas. Smaller venues and smaller performers are my jam. I don’t have much of a historical perspective, but I’m all in for the storylines and spectacle of today.
Now dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.
BOTCH: The Glove of Doom
I can’t tell you much about Brian Pillman, Jr. other than that he’s the son of a guy who tagged with Steve Austin back when Austin had hair. Although, on hair, I can tell you Pillman’s locks are excellent.
The match starts alright, all wristlocks and rolls. Spears escalates things quickly, takes a break to listen to a pep talk from Tully Blanchard, then heads back in to finish the job. After the bell, he slips Tully’s pocket neutron star into his glove to clobber the frosted ends off Pillman’s party in the back.
So long Pillman’s mullet, we hardly knew ya. Maybe soon we’ll get to see you back in AEW fighting a match that Eddie’s would’ve been proud of.
BOTCH: N’est pas le champion
Tonight we’re introduced to a new women’s contender in Raché Chanel, apparently a French fashionista. Now, my jeans and tank wearing ass is far from fashionable, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that leopard print leg warmers are not couture.
It seems being Not French is the gimmick, though. I mean, Big Swole ain’t swole either. She’s definitely full of charisma, though, and deserves to have made shorter work of the challenger than she did.
There is a long pause part-way through, presumably to give Britt “Roll Model” Baker time to roll in and pull some faces. She’s been heelin’ it up but good on Dynamite the past few months, but this doesn’t really advance the story.
BOTCH: Dustin talking over women
Cut to an Alex Marvez interview with Brandi Rhodes and Allie, aka the Nightmare Sisters. They haven’t had much chemistry as a tag team and neither of the two are very natural on the mic, so I get that they’re looking for something to juice it up.
Dustin Rhodes walking in to interrupt ain’t that juice.
In pretty much the same breath, he accuses Allie of plotting to kick QT Marshall in the balls, then encourages her to give tagging with Brandi a shot anyway, then threatens her not to mess with his family. Dude is one exhausting MF.
Not sure if the audience is supposed to be behind the Nightmare Family here, but I am all in for Allie kicking Dustin in the balls and finding a better bunch of people to hang out with.
POP: Stripey Uncle Fester
When Luther first showed up on the scene, I didn’t really get him. I’m not really into hardcore matches, and not really into horror gimmicks. But this match where he takes the L to Frankie Kazarian changed my mind.
Luther walks in with red and white striped gear and gets right to work raking and choking poor Frankie. The match is kinda whatever, were it not for Luther getting all fired up and talking back at the ref and the crowd in a way that fills a Jack Evans sized hole in our hearts. The way he screeches and gurns gives him a lovable loon quality.
Kazarian pins him with a surprise victory roll, leaving them both looking good and ready for a rematch.
POP: The Faboo Four
Half an hour in we get to my highlight of the night: Faboo Andre!
Faboo is back with a ragtag bunch of jobbers (Joe Alonzo Jr, Brady Pierce and Tony Donati). They’re there to be squashed by Lucha Bros, The Butcher and The Blade ahead of the match against Young Bucks and FTR at Fyter Fest night two. The finish is a literal squash, with a sequence that sees The Butcher suplexing Alonzo into Pentagón’s arms, who then powerbombs him onto The Blade’s knees, where he is drop-kicked by Fénix coming in from the corner post.
It was short, sweet and badass.
BOTCH: Watch me crank dat
Will Hobbs. Will lose to Orange Cassidy. Is what I expected when I saw that the citrus slacker was going to be in action ahead of his showdown with Jericho at Fyter Fest night two.
What I didn’t expect was for Hobbs to be a bruiser half as wide as he is tall.
I suppose the only logical outcome for this utterly unbalanced matchup was for Cassidy to end it with a single superman punch.
Hopefully we’ll get to see Hobbs actually do a move at some point.
POP: Non-creepy lotion
Michael Nakazawa’s lotion gimmick is creepily reminiscent of a recently-canceled California indie fave, so it’s a good thing he doesn’t use it here.
Oh wait, yes he does.
After kicking off with a flurry of tecnico action, Shawn Dean puts Nakazawa into a half-hearted waist lock. This sets up the inevitable spot where Nakazawa reaches into his trunks to grab the oil, lube himself up and slip out.
A bit later on, Naka Z pulls out a second magic potion, which ref Aubrey Edwards promptly confiscates and tosses out to the stands. His next trick involves removing his underwear and using it as a weapon to eventually force the pin.
I was prepared to hate this, but somehow it’s sold innocently enough that it made me forget all about the real world nasties. I suppose that’s a testament to the skill of these guys as entertainers.
POP: This is lucha
If you’re only going to watch one match tonight, and you like “serious” wrestling, this is the one for you – Serpentico vs Scorpio Sky. (Skip to 50:50)
Serpentico enters in style – shiny mask, shiny loincloth and streamers! Scorpio Sky’s new music is great and presents him well as a big time star.
The pair get into a solid lucha match – acrobatic and hard-hitting. Serpentico is still a little green, but he has potential. He has an odd style of doing grand poses to lead into what you expect would be a violent finisher, and then he does nothing. At first it seemed he’d forgotten the spot, but after the second time I figured that was the spot. Serpentico doing nothing is amusing in exactly the way Orange Cassidy doing nothing is amusing, except más luchable.
Scorpio Sky takes it with a TKO, of course, but it’s a competitive bout and feels good for the both of them.
POP: The band is back together
Last week on Dark, Brandon Cutler and Peter Avalon got a lesson in tag teamin’ from the Young Bucks. This week they’re booked against a less intimidating duo in The Original Dark Order (Stu Grayson and Evil Uno).
Who immediately show up with four other goons.
I didn’t watch their return on episode 38 of Dark, so this is the first time I’ve seen the originals back in action since Feburary. It feels good to see some of the quarantined crew back in the ring, even when the outcome of the match is pretty much a no-brainer.
Avalon gets in a nice bit of character work, getting the hot tag, dropkicking the heck out of Dark Order, getting surprised by Uno’s evil elbow, coming back out with an Arabian moonsault, pin attempt and oh no! That’s all she wrote for The Librarian.
This match ends a little rough, with Cutler jumping out of the ring to bowl over the assembled minions only to tweak his knee, and Evil Uno toppling out of the ring and appearing to twist his wrist. Grayson finishes off Avalon with everyone else collapsed outside.
One last POP for Taz
Banshee? I hardly knew ‘er! Did you ever have a watermelon donut?
Taz killed it all night. He and Excalibur have a great rhythm in the booth and it was definitely a nice change from the four man booth we got stuck with for the first night of Fyter Fest last week.
All in all, episode 41 of Dark was another fine night of stats-packing for the stars. Do you agree with my takes? Did I miss a trick? Leave a comment below! And don’t forget to come back later on for night two of Fyter Fest!
