This is where I would normally open with a rambling, barely wrestling-adjacent blurb, but there is a lot to cover this week ahead of the showdown between Brandon Cutler and Peter Avalon. Without further ado, let’s get to the recap of the past week in the AEW undercard and October 20’s Dark.
Last week on Dark…
Cutler and Avalon found a new way to avoid a decisive match outcome. Janelafix drank the magic potion and clobbered Roman centurion D3. The Dark Order/Nightmare Family feud abruptly disappeared down whatever rabbit hole Allie did. Catch up in the October 13 recap!
Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…
Last week’s Dynamite was billed as the anniversary show and focused on the top guys. Lee Johnson and Sean Maluta had a brief and unremarkable appearance as a random jobber tag team versus Kip Sabian and Miro, who squashed them. I wonder how long Kip and Miro will remain tag partners?
Being the Elite returned to all-ages YouTube this Monday, and episode 226 is just as juvenile as last week’s inexplicably flagged episode was. As usual the show is packed with dick and fart jokes, but this episode also had some important story beats.
The BTE cold open was used to explain why the Cutler/Avalon match appeared so early on Dark last week – the match was unexpectedly moved up… and that’s also why the Bucks weren’t in Cutler’s corner! The rivals also appear in a mock press conference featuring Tony Khan, who announced that the rubber match will be no disqualifications, no count-outs!
There’s no such stipulation in mini golf. Cutler and Avalon were also opponents in the tournament set up to find the first holder of the BTE title belt, but managed to both get themselves disqualified for poor sportsmanship. They were replaced by Matt Sydal versus Colt Cabana in Michael Nakazawa’s body (don’t ask). Cabanazawa advances.
Fuego del Sol also appeared in the tournament versus Sammy Guevara. An added stipulation for him was that if he advanced, the Bucks would have to rebook him for Dark so he can be on set to film the next golf round for BTE. Guess what? We’re getting more Fuego, baby!
Golfing luchadors are great, but I know y’all are waiting for the Cutler/Avalon resolution, so scroll on for episode 57.
Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.
BOTCH: There is no Cutler/Avalon resolution
I’ll just get this out of the way at the start. After all the build, the big match is not happening this week. There’s still 2 hours of show, though. Buckle up, kids.
POP: Spears turns the heat up
Our first match is Shawn Spears versus Christopher Daniels, acting as the miniboss for Scorpio Sky who Spears has been building a program with for the past few weeks.
I have to say, it’s awfully refreshing for Spears to have a program with someone and stop with the tedious squashes and loaded glove gimmick.
Well, he’s still got the loaded glove gimmick. But here he gets to go a bit deeper into heeling, mocking CD’s recent string of rope-assisted botches. He takes the win, but Sky jumps out to protect his fellow SCU member before Spears can club him. So the bastard clubs a stagehand instead. Boo!
This match gets some real heat! You can see the shoot joy sneak out on both wrestlers’ faces to be performing in front of a live crowd again, presumably just ahead of last week’s Dynamite taping. There’s a smile on my face too. I love having wrestlers in the front row, but having fans out in the stands yelling and jeering too makes a real difference.
BOTCH: Johnny fuck off
KiLynn King is one of the most heroic corona era jobbers – 0 and 10, with lots of solid wrestling in there. This week she’s being served up to Brandi Rhodes.
The two work surprisingly well together.
And then, in classic AEW form, the women’s wrestling is interrupted by a man. Everyone’s favorite minion John Silver comes out with a cue card referencing his “Johnny Hungiee” catchphrase from BTE and asks to be on Brandi’s YouTube “cooking” (actually mostly chit-chat) show.
You know, I am all here for strengthening the AEW You-niverse… We got BTE, we got Sammy Guevara’s vlog, we got Shot of Brandi – having all that cross over with Dark is aces for younger and cable-free wrestling fans. But for fuck’s sake. Let’s also give the women some time on camera, yo.
Brandi wins.
POP: Starks keeps the stylish squash going
David Ali is back this week to face “Absolute” Ricky Starks.
Now, these two work well together. Starks spends way too much time posing, so Ali kicks the shit out of him, which causes Starks to snap and heel it up proper. He is so good at mugging for the camera – he even spikes the ring post cam! Television superstar for sure, this kid.
Ali looks tough too here, though, coming in with some stiff offense. He takes his bumps then lays down for our golden boy.
POP: Building to Sky/Spears
Fuego del Sol faces Scorpio Sky this week, in a match whose outcome was spoiled by Cody Rhodes in Sammy Guevara’s vlog (episode 291).
Well, Sky does come in with pyro, and del Sol is the jobbingest luchador since Serpentico, so it’s no big surprise.
The two start things off real clean and técnico, which y’all know is one of my favorite things. Sky makes the switch to harder offense, which del Sol counters with some of delightfully over-complicated arm drags. It’s an entertaining back-and-forth, but Sky wins it with a pretty pathetic sharpshooter.
You know what that means, right? YOU SUMMONED A CANADIAN!
Shawn Spears’ music hits, but our perfect 10 doesn’t bother coming out, so pitiful was Sky’s attempt at Canada’s national wrestling move.
YouTube.ca cuts to a flu shot commercial – make sure to get yours, folks!- but this feud is getting hot, y’all.
POP: Stark remarks on Solow
Next bout features Aaron Solow with his fancy teal locks all tied up in a bun. Luchasaurus is in the other corner, being sprayed down by Water Boy Jack Perry.
Solow smartly takes his hair tie out so we can enjoy the flowing mane as he jumps and dives around trying to weaken the wrestling dino. Ricky Starks has joined us on commentary and mentions he used to tag with Solow, which is a pair I can absolutely see working.
We don’t get much time to muse on that imagery, though, as Luchasaurus unloads a chokeslam and standing moonsault for the win.
POP: Tag team cromulence
Speaking of flowing manes, here’s Griff Garrison and Brian Pillman Jr! They’re facing The Butcher and The Blade.
This is… a perfectly fine tag match. Even though Griff and Brian are new to AEW, both teams feel like midcard anchors and put on a good show. The Buffalo boys take it.
BOTCH: Women as prop
It’s Penta El Zero M! Solo! He’s facing tag partner Rey Fénix in the opening round of the number one contender tournament on Dynamite, so this is his singles warm up. His opponent is QT Marshall.
It’s nice to see Penta get to be a singles hero again after tagging for several years. Unfortunately most of the Dynamite crowd has left the building, which flattens his “cero miedo” and glove taunts a bit. Still, QT is a low-key excellent wrestler who knows how to make his opponent look good, and this match does exactly that.
And lo – now it’s time for the women to get some match-interruption mojo back on the men! Allie has returned, and she’s dressed as The Bunny again!
Of course, with this angle, it’s still all about the men. Eddie Kingston is the one to introduce her. And she’s only there to distract her former kayfabe romantic interest QT Marshall. She doesn’t even get the time to cut her own promo, explaining why she tagged along with Nightmare Family for so long! She doesn’t get to beat down Brandi, she doesn’t get to kick Dustin in the nuts, so…
Ugh, I’ve given up on Nightmare Family-adjacent angles ever paying off. And this women’s booking… less said the better.
Penta wins. He deserves better too.
POP: Wholesome wrestling
KTB – last featured on Steel Ring Post back in August’s GCW Keep In Touch P&B – is here in AEW! He’s facing Jungle “Water Boy” Boy!
KTB has a heavy metal flying angry redneck gimmick, but he also has a smiley face tattooed on his arm so I kind of love him. He’s very smooth in the ring with a nice blend of big man moves and small man agility. (Secretly he isn’t much of a big man, since Jungle Boy is taller, but still. KTB is a big man on the inside!)
Jungle Boy gives the indie star plenty of time to shine before winning it with flying kneedrop from the turnbuckle. It’s sweet to see a relatively young star put over his jobbing opponent.
MEH: Champs treading water
Tonight we have a rare women’s random jobber tag team – Kenzie Paige and Skyler Moore have been tossed together to face Women’s Tag Team Cup champions Ivelisse and Diamente.
The match starts with all four women going at each other, which is cool to see. Paige and Moore obviously aren’t going to win this, but they’re fighting like it matters.
The champs win it, and I’m once again left wondering why these two aren’t getting much mileage up in the main roster.
BOTCH: Cult Cabana back in the weeds
Vowel hater Bshp King has returned to take on Colt Cabana, who is missing his Dark Order entourage this week.
After an uneventful start, John Silver and Alex Reynolds pop out for… about 5 seconds. After disappearing they come back again, almost costing Cabana the match. (He eventually does win.)
Maybe I’m a dumb fan, but I’m missing the subtext here so I kinda wish they’d do a promo to explain exactly what the situation is with the Cabana/Dark Order relationship. Last week it seemed to make some kind of sense, but now it’s back to confusion.
MEH: Just, meh
We got another debut this week: dude with 90s superhero name, Adam Priest! He’s facing Dark Order Minion #5, Alan Angels.
Being a fan of the undercard, I feel like I should care about this match, but I don’t. Angels is a fairly decent wrestler, it seems Priest is okay too, but it doesn’t go anywhere interesting.
5 wins.
POP: Just good wrestling
Frankie Kazarian is seeing a bit of singles action this week, versus Jack Evans. Kaz gets the only meaningful promo of the entire show, and it’s not a bad one, although it’s very traditional and almost certainly less amusing than an Evans spoken word performance would’ve been.
Good thing they’re both excellent wrestlers who don’t need promos to make for an enjoyable match. Evans gets a bit of help from his tag partner Angélico, taking some cheap shots on the side, but Kazarian is just too damn good. After several near falls in each direction, Kaz gets the win.
POP: Minions v Jabronis
Random jobber trios! On the jobber side we have Roman centurion D3, “The Empbruh” Baron Black and some dude named Louie Valle. They’re facing Dark Order’s 3, 4 and 10.
Valle takes the first round of offense before unleashing with a flurry of his own. He tags out to Black who immediately gets the shit clotheslined out of him. I imagine there’s nothing quite as demoralizing as tagging in all fresh and ready to go, then immediately getting clobbered. But such is the life of the jobber.
Black takes punishment from both Silver and Reynolds before tagging out to D3, who has made a name for himself on Dark as being one of the roster’s most artful clobberees. Clobberee? Clobbee? Jabroni.
D3 does it again here, valiantly getting thrown all over the place. But Valle is the new guy this week, so he is the one who ultimately tags in to get destroyed by the Dark Order trio. This is my match of the night!
POP: Good ol’ fashioned squash
Another debut this week is Staten Island boy Vinny Pacifico! He’s up against Wardlow, and if this isn’t a squash I’ll eat my tuque.
This is a squash. Win by knockout.
POP: Nice guys working on their characters
Matt Sydal is getting some more action this week, this time against “The Captain” Shawn Dean.
These two are a good match-up, kicking things off with some great chain wrestling and escalating to more acrobatic throws and aerial work.
Neither of these guys have developed much of a character yet, but they’re nice to watch in the ring. Sydal trials a bit more of a heelish offense this time around, which serves Dean well. The Captain makes a good face.
Sydal wins by submission.
POP: This is lucha!
This week’s headliner is Sonny Kiss versus Rey Fénix.
Two Lucha Underground alumni getting to duke it out in AEW is always a recipe for a good match, and this is no exception. Fénix’s luchador style complements Sonny’s exótico movements a lot better than wrestlers who work more in the American style. It’s great to see Sonny’s offense come across as powerful and effective, and getting a headline match means he’s got the time to pull out some new stuff like a tornado elbow strike and some interesting evasions.
Fénix, of course, is just a wizard from bell to bell. I don’t think there’s anyone who moves around the ring better than him. He wins it, and my money’s on him in his face-off with brother Penta in the first round of the tournament.
This was a Dark with a good amount of enjoyable matches, but it struggled here and there with getting stories over. Shawn Spears is finally getting a story he deserves, which is great, but a lot of the long-running Dark Order and Nightmare Family storylines either got ignored or fizzled. And let’s not even talk about how the women got shafted, again.
I do like that Dark has been including promos over the past few weeks, but this week we just got a brief hello from Team Kingston and the aforementioned Kaz bit. It’s a missed opportunity. Some storylines can be told fine during a match, but other ones you’re losing the nuance and the drama when you just drop some random run-in and somehow that’s supposed to mean something. With Dark bloating out to over 2 hours they really ought to be able frame some of these matches a little better.
How did you feel about the run-ins? Does 2 hours of Dark exhaust you? Is there another AEW YouTube show I should include in the weecaps? Drop us a line in the comments or come say hi on Discord. I’ll be back here on Steel Ring Post next week with more undercard reportin’.
