Roll up, roll up, wrestling fans. It’s already been a bountiful week for AEW with the Women’s Tag Team Cup Tournament (Wotateacup) getting started on Monday. We’ll have coverage of that a bit later on, but today we’re gonna talk the August 4 episode of AEW Dark.
Last week on Dark…
Pineapple Pete played slip’n’slide, then got bisected by Sonny Kiss. Abadon scared the shit out of everyone. Serpentico got freshly squeezed. Way too much other stuff happened, you can catch up on all the pops and botches on our July 28 recap.
I’m free! I’m free! Dang it.
Your faithful undercard correspondent finally made it out of self-isolation, and immediately went to the (socially distanced) bar to celebrate. Then – seeing an ad for Smackdown during the hockey – remembered there was a show to recap. Someone get me a buffered analgesic.
Follow along with Episode 45 on YouTube.
Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.
POP: Glass jaw Hobbs
Will Hobbs and Scorpio Sky drop the puck. Hobbs looks like he has a plane to catch, charging Sky while dude’s still getting his kit off. Couple seconds later he lets loose with his baddest ass spinebuster.
Then Sky hits one move, and it’s a TKO, and… it’s over?
After collapsing from a single shot of Orange a few weeks back it appears Hobbs is somewhat of a reverse TARDIS – heavyweight on the outside, featherweight on the inside. It was a cheesy match, but I’m kinda down with this glass jaw thing as a fun jobber storyline.
Sky cut the usual midcard promo about wanting a piece of the top guy pie. He deserves it. Well, at least a piece of Dyna-pie.
BOTCH: Ass from the past
Serpentico stalks out to the ring with pink streamers tonight. Aaron Solow’s excellent stock beat is still crying out for someone to lay down some lyrics. They’re teamed together against Billy and Austin Gunn.
Serpentico tries to lift Billy, but that’s not happening. The Gunn Club do some big boots and punches and clotheslines and it is not very interesting. Solow and Austin get a bit more técnico with their graps, till Solow hits the “suck it” taunt. He also wiggles his ass at Billy, which somehow works because he has fabulous green hair.
This match was better than I expected, but not quite enough to earn a developmental pop. Austin pins Serpentico for the win.
POP: Sonny Kiss, wind mage
The Initiative are back this week, and they roll a 14 on the D20. Sonny Kiss and Joey Janela are their opponents.
Janela comes out strong, but it feels pretty evenly matched. Brandon Cutler makes a lovely somersault over the ropes onto Janela to give Peter Avalon and Sonny a chance to shine. Avalon gets dirty. Sonny dives out to give Cutler a DDT. Janela jumps out too. These guys are all Energizer Bunnies, jumping in and out and who got the tag, who cares? It’s fantastic.
Janela takes a bump against the steel entranceway and Avalon heels it up even harder. Even Cutler starts looking mean! Could this be the one?
Of course not. Sonny comes back with a bunch of air ball offense, but we’ll ignore that because he’s great and watching The Initiative lose is too much fun. The hits start connecting toward the end. Avalon takes the pin.
POP: Zombies and redheads
A popular question during the Discord live chats over the past few weeks has been “who’s that tall redhead next to Pineapple Pete?” Here she is! The Queen of Crazy, KiLynn King. She faces The Living Dead Girl, Abadon.
King comes in strong, using her size to beat the crap out of Abadon and toss her out of the ring. Bad move. Abadon goes berserk and smashes King into the barricades, then brings her back into the ring to smack her head into the mat. Repeatedly. One Undertaker sit-up later it’s pretty much all over for King.
Tough women do it for me, so this was my match of the night.
POP: Allie and the apple killer
Jack Evans is back, y’all! He’s accompanied to the ring by Angélico, who gives Allie a run for her money in best valet of the match. Oh yeah, the other competitor is QT Marshall.
Evans bounces around like a pinball, on his head, on his front, on his side, high and low. He sells all the tedious offense coming his way like he’s up against the biggest guy in the company. He also cheats like the scum he is, and pins QT after Allie distracts the ref long enough for Angélico to kick him in the face. QT that is, not the ref.
The ending of this surprised me, which is hard to do on a show where it’s usually local jobbers coming in to pad the stats of the midcard. It looked for a while like Allie might be palling around with the Nightmare Family for real, but this little “mistake” of hers is a good tease that it might all be a ruse.
Fun match.
BOTCH: Not even a mullet can save it
Griff “Not Jungle Boy” Garrison and Brian Pillman Jr show up with the most glorious hair in AEW. They’ve been teamed up to lose against AEW’s least interesting duo, FTR.
Last week on Dynamite, FTR signed a contract with a stipulation that all their matches must have a tag rope and, like, rules or something. Commentators Taz and Tony Schiavone try to put this hokey stuff over, but it takes all of 5 minutes for Harwood (not tagged in) to try punch Garrison from the apron, so Fuck The Rules, i guess?
FTR win it. Garrison and Pillman deserve better.
POP: Catering cold cuts
The Butcher and The Blade stomp into the ring ready to take on Private Party in our main event of the evening.
Butcher drives the start of this match, spanking both Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen. He’d probably have a good chance against Private Party all on his own lately, but lets the Blade in to dole out a few more choice hits.
Quen ends up taking most of the punishment, till the hot tag. Kassidy goes hard for a bit, then drapes Butcher over his knees in a reverse-backstabber (frontstabber?) position. Quen comes in to stand on Butcher’s back and moonsaults the whole shebang. Very cool.
For a moment it looks like Private Party might take this, but then Butcher strikes back by tossing Kassidy over his shoulder into Blade’s knees for a reverse-frontstabber and the pin.
The Butcher and The Blade came into AEW a little soft, but the past few months they have amped up the violence. A bit like Luther, it’s not always clear if their moves are legit painful or just worked to look that way, but it makes for exciting viewing. There’s so much entertaining tag-teamin’ in AEW it must be tough to fit them all in.
This week’s Dark was really tight – just over an hour in length and packed full of engaging matches. My only real complaint is FTR. They’re definitely experienced and solid wrestlers who can do a lot to help teach and elevate the younger guys, but as characters they bore me. Fortunately in Dark we don’t have to put up with their cringeworthy segments with Adam Page, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks, but I’m sure we’ll get some of that Wednesday evening in Dynamite.
What do you think? Does FTR suck? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
Don’t forget to come back for our AEW Dynamite pops & botches, and if you dig WWE you’ll be happy to know we are covering Raw, NXT and Smackdown now too. See you soon, wrestlin’ writin’ fans!
