Dasha tries to keep a straight face as Angélico dances - AEW (YouTube)

Pops & Botches: AEW Elevation & Dark – 3.29.2021 & 3.30.2021

AEW Dark Elevation Pops & Botches

 

Last week the logjam of AEW shows eased, as li’l Skarsgård arrived to dredge about a half hour of footage free of the bulky Elevation debut. Will they keep the trend going? Read on to find out, in the Steel Ring Post recap of March 29’s Elevation and March 30’s Dark.

Last time on Dark…

The Bunny returned the wrestling ring, with an emoji keyboard full of new faces to pull. Paul Wight talked about himself while ignoring Ryo Mizunami and Leyla Hirsch in the main event. Ricky Starks talked about mount cyanide. Joey Janela did some delightfully silly shit. Check out all the pops and botches in our March 22/23 recap.

Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…

Last week’s Dynamite was a harrowing one for our undercard and midcard faves – Matt Sydal, Cezar Bononi, Varsity Blonds, Dante Martin and Brandon Cutler all lay down for the stars. Tay Conti got a win over Nyla Rose, though, and Matt Hardy’s gang (now featuring The Butcher, The Blade and The Bunny) showed up to initimidate her – and the Yakuza 0 incarnation of Hikaru Shida! All the details are in our recap, so click through for more.

Being the Elite episode 249 opened with more Hardy. It turns out BB&B joined the gang due to a surprise appearance from Broken Matt! Brian Cage hits a kickflip, proving once and for all that he is wasted in traditional big man roles.

Sammy Guevara’s vlog opens episode 313 with Carlito Carribbean Cool dropping his “that’s not cool” catchphrase from way back in the day! Now that’s cool! 🍎 Dustin Rhodes kisses Fuego del Sol’s head. Baron Black wins the BTE championship, only for now-signed Shawn Dean to clown him for being an extra. Brandi Rhodes takes some shots at the fans who got butthurt over Negative One appearing on Dynamite. It’s very funny.

What have we got in store in episode 3 of Monday Night Elevation?

Two and a half hours, that’s what. Oof.

POP: OC’s new song

Jon Moxley opens the show with a promo, shot from the inside of a shipping container stuck in the Suez.

The actual opening match is odd couple JD Drake and “The Hollywood Hunk” Ryan Nemeth versus Best Friends Orange Cassidy and Chuck Taylor. It seems Tony Khan has bought some more music rights, since OC’s new theme is an apparently famous track by Boston area guitar band The Pixies called Where Is My Mind? It is at this point where where I admit to knowing almost as much about college rock as I do about R&B, which is to say not much. Just wait till one of these wrestlers walks out to some deep house music, I will weave in all kinds of tedious references to Chicago DJs and nightclubs you never heard of.

Anyway, the song is alright. These guys fight. Drake accidentally head-butts Nemeth in the nuts. OC does his hands-in-pockets routine. Drake shows his comedic timing once again, and now I’m a fan.

OC wins it. The Pixies play their jangly tune. Then Miro runs in to beat everyone up. Fine opener.

BOTCH: Banish him to a container

Next up we have Bill Collier. He is some big indie dude who looks like a WWE guy. He’s facing our former AEW champ, fresh out of his shipping container, it’s Jooooon Moxley!

Yeah, Moxley still sucks. Love him in a shipping container. Hate him in the ring. I guess if you like the WWE main roster style, you will like this match. I don’t. Mox wins.

FINE: Ford gets a workout

Penelope Ford has been looking a bit rusty the past few weeks, let’s see if she can turn it around in the next match. She’s facing Queens jobber Leila Grey.

I’m not sure if someone had a word to our Monday night commentators about their shitty calling of the main event last week, but Schiavone barely misses a beat with the play-by-play on this match. Too bad it’s not nearly as interesting!

Ford wins it.

POP: Upping the tempo

We got another couple of debuts tonight – Rex Lawless and Milk Chocolate! The former is an indie dude who has worked some shows with Mike Verna recently. Milk Chocolate is the fantastically-named tag team of cruiserweights Brandon Watts and Randy Summers. They’re facing The Gunn Club in trios mode.

Austin and Summers give us our first explosive exchange of the night. Billy is up next for some big man grappling with Lawless. We finally get our first look at Watts during the inevitable Austin beatdown.

As usual, Colten swoops in to clothesline everyone. It’s 3:10 to Yuma and they got the pin.

POP: Mud show fun show

Joey Janela is getting a solo outing tonight versus debuting Texas wrestler Chandler Hopkins.

Hopkins gets hit by Janela’s tope suicida, then immediately comes back with a swan dive over the top rope. Modern wrestling is so dumb and wonderful. Dude takes 10 minutes to set up a frog splash too. This is some indie bullshit.

Janela utterly kills him and then just kinda leans over lazily with a non-cover, which of course he kicks out. If Jim Ross was watching he’d burst a blood vessel. Full marks to oldskool announce duo Wight and Schiavone for resisting the temptation to complain about this delightfully hokey nonsense.

Janela with the elbow drop – 1, 2, 3.

POP: Happy Rosa

Another of our faves from the Lone Star State is here tonight – “The Pink Dream” Alex Gracia. She will be facing Thunder Rosa, who cut an awesome promo a few segments ago.

Thunder Rosa on the promo was the first time we’ve heard her say more than two words in the whole 6+ months she’s been at AEW. Diamante interrupted with a well-timed “you don’t even go here”, which I don’t even care if they cribbed it from NXT because NXT has/had the best women’s division in American wrestling. You know what they say, if you’re gonna steal, steal from the ones who stole it from Mean Girls. Somewhere Dani Jordyn is smiling.

Rosa and Gracia kick it off with some great técnico stuff, amateur holds and throws. “Arm drag city”, says Schiavone. Rosa is in a good mood tonight, all smiles and eyebrows.

Gracia tries hard but it’s not her time. Rosa gets the win.

POP: Too legit to quit

Next up we have “Legit” Leyla Hirsch versus Vipress.

Hirsch pulls out all the amateur mat wrestling moves in the first 5 seconds. Vipress is way outclassed here, and only gets the upper hand after snapping Hirsch’s arm over the ropes.

Hirsch sells the heelish punishment, but she pulls through this like a boss and suplexes the Californian to get the win.

MEH: Y’all can do better

Opening our second hour is “Radioactive Papi” Danny Limelight versus SCU’s Frank Kazarian. RIP Limelight, Kaz is gonna kill you.

This match is good, but not as good as I thought it was going to be. Kaz is a pro. Limelight is one of the top unsigned talents. Everything they connect with really connects, it’s clean, it’s well-executed… But there is too much resting in this match. Every move is preceded by several seconds of just standing around, barely even grappling. I guess this kind of tempo works if you are a couple of main roster guys with a massive feud that lets the crowd fill the gaps, but it feels a bit empty on a Dark match with a couple of commentators who haven’t really found their groove yet.

Kaz wins.

BOTCH: How to make a Fuego match boring

“All Ego” Ethan Page has another match lined up tonight, maybe he’ll finally impress me. He’s got Fuego del Sol.

Page is working even slower than Kaz and Limelight were. Someone needs to give these guys whatever it is that perks the Gunn Club up every night.

This is almost Moxley level of boring. Worst match ever. The inferior Page wins.

POP: The champ is here!

In something that might be a follow-up to last week’s Dynamite antics, we have number one contender Tay Conti and women’s champion Hikaru Shida teamed up – with support from Dark Order – to face jobbers Jazmin Allure and Tesha Price.

Conti dispatches both of the jobbers singlehandedly, then tags in Shida to beat them up some more. Shida has the grace to sell some of Price’s offense, while still hitting enough authoritative moves to show she’s the champ.

Obviously Shida and Conti take this. They’re a fun duo.

POP: For Angélico’s bare chest

Earlier in the night, Jack Evans got to cut a ridiculous promo while Angélico danced topless behind him. It was hilarious, and probably my highlight of the night so far.

Now Evans is coming into the ring to face Jungle Boy. Evans isn’t quite the highflyer he used to be, but he seems to be settling into a similar sort of role to Matt Sydal, jobber to the stars. He does it again here, putting up a decent fight for Jungle Boy, but ultimately letting the much younger star go over.

It’s fine. Angélico’s chest is the real star.

POP: Explosive baddies

After a billion Nightmare Family adjacent matches last week, it’s pleasantly surprising to only get our first sighting of the skull tattoo faction at 90+ minutes into the show. Lee Johnson and QT Marshall are teaming up to take on jobbers Aaron Frye and Adam Priest.

QT Marshall absolutely destroys Frye straight out of the gate. Big Shotty is just as explosive, and not in the happy Gunn Club way, but in the big, bad, FTR gonna beat you into a bloody pulp kinda way. I miss face Shotty, but heel QT is chef’s kiss beautiful so I’ll allow it.

Priest looks hot too here. He’s deceptively redneck-lookin’, then comes out with some great amateur styling. One Diamond Cutter later, he is squashed, but everyone here looked good.

POP: Spirit of Ichigaya Chocolate Square

Oh my, we’re getting another of my fantasy match-ups! KiLynn King versus Ryo Mizunami! Hooray! I love Aniki’s entrance almost as much as I love Kenny Omega’s entrance. But Aniki has her own twist, placing her sunnies on Bryce Remsburg’s nose, then lifting him up like a baby. She’s the reverse Orange Cassidy! Bwahahaha!

The two women have a dance-off to start, because of course they do. That got me smiling. Wight and Schiavone still aren’t really sure how to call the comedy spots yet. I mean, you guys, you just have to go with it. It’s professional wrestling, not the freakin’ Olympics.

It’s so much fun to watch King join the joshi in really hamming it up. Their tests of strength are smartly presented, and by the time Aniki unloads with her totally over-the-top chop gimmick, it almost, nearly gets over with our tightly-wound announce team.

They switch back to straight wrestling for the closing sequence, and Mizunami takes it with her guillotine leg drop. Easily my match of the night.

POP: The Darkest match

Next up, Dark Order’s Alan “5” Angels and Preston “10” Vance. They’re facing two of our most colorful and charming jobbers, Vary Morales and D3 “The Prince of Rome”.

D3 slaps 10 in the face, which is the only hit he gets in on the big guy. Angels clobbers him to the outside, then takes on Morales in a slick técnico exchange.

Five and Dime win it, perhaps our most Tuesday Night Dark match of this Monday night.

POP: Future of the division

In our penultimate match tonight we have Bear Country versus Private Party. Bear Country get a sweet package introducing them as sympathetic but violent faces.

Isiah Kassidy and Bear Bronson to open. Bronson overpowers him, so Marc Quen shows up to give it a shot. He also fails. Bear Boulder continues the beatdown. The Party Boyz eventually separate Bronson and issue him some heelish receipts.

The bears make a brief comeback, but after Marko Stunt runs in to distract, Private Party take advantage and get the pin. Jurassic Express run in, they all throw down, et cetera.

MEH: Increase the playback speed

Our main event tonight is Scorpio Sky versus yoga bro Mike Sydal. Scorpio Sky has a new studded leather vest to go with his heel turn.

Mike isn’t quite as thrilling as Matt in the ring, but he does lean a bit more into the silly poses and GIFable reaction faces, which always pops me. Sky apparently had his offense choreographed by whoever it is that set all the heels to work in slow motion this week, and, eh. It’s not my style of match to begin with, but without a crowd and without some kind of entertainment in the commentary to balance it out, I can’t quite get into it.

Sky wins. Matt Sydal comes in to tend to his brother, then the lesser Page arrives to hit both Sydals. The heels leave together, being heels. Meh.

This week’s Elevation was too damn long. I suppose airing this much wrestling gives the dejected Monday Night Raw viewers something to flick over to, but I’m not sure following Raw’s bloated format is the path AEW really wants to take for their new B-show.

On the upside, Wight and Schiavone were markedly improved on commentary this week. Wight still isn’t especially compelling, but at least he’s stopped being a constant cringe-fest. Given a few more shows, I think this could come together.

Let’s fast forward to Tuesday night, episode 82.

Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.

MEH: Beaten, battered and blended

Milk Chocolate are back for another round this Tuesday night, and they are about to get clobbered by The Butcher, The Blade and The Bunny. Private Party and Matt Hardy are on the sidelines too – talk about intimidating!

Blade kills both Brandon Watts and Randy Summers. Then Butch and Hardy kill Watts some more. This is the beatingest beatdown that ever beat.

Summers hits a bunch of uppercuts and a neckbreaker on Blade, but nah, this is one epic squash. Bit tedious, really.

BOTCH: Bates still searching for a gimmick

Time for an unsigned battle: Madi Wrenkowski versus Jazmin Allure. “The Librarian” Leva Bates is on commentary.

I think this battle is more about Bates than the women in the ring. Bates unloads bitterly on Wrenkowski for hitting her in the head with a book last week. Meanwhile Wrenkowski clotheslines Allure on the outside.

The work is alright, but coupled with the weird commentary, it just doesn’t quite gel. Wrenkowski wins.

OKAY: We needed more than developmental

It’s been a poor start to the show. Can Chaos Project turn it around? Their victims this week are Nightmare Randos In Need Of More Memorable Names, Dean Alexander and Justin Law.

Luther throws Serpentico out to squish Alexander before the bell even rings. Law gets thrashed into the barriers, kneed, double-stomped and slammed. Alexander eventually comes back with a hot tag that’s barely luke-warm.

Chaos Project get the win with their Creeping Death finisher, but it’s not enough to turn this show around.

POP: Lucha lucha lucha

Okay, we need an emergency lucha injection, stat! Angélico versus Sonny Kiss, let’s go.

The opening is full of holds, locks and trips. This is solidly in Angélico’s wheelhouse, but eventually Kiss breaks free and hits some arm drags, Matrix escape and a tijeras. After a bit of interference from Jack Evans, Angélico gets Kiss down to the matt and into a few submissions. Lovely, lovely lucha.

Angélico sells a bulldog like he got hit by a truck, but he soon comes back with a Navarro Death Roll and Kiss taps out. Awesome.

POP: Cheery trios

Let’s turn up the darkness. Dark Order are sending Evil Uno, Stu Grayson and Colt Cabana out for some random trios action. The jobbers are Vary Morales, D3 and Bill Collier, who weighs about as much as both of the other two put together.

D3 and Uno to open. Uno chops the centurion to the floor, stomps his fingers and jabs him in the eye. These two have perfect timing together, I could watch them fight all night. D3 hits a dropkick then escapes to let Collier do some big man stuff. This is a very silly match, and it’s a lot of fun.

Morales tags in just in time to get squashed. Ultimately it’s D3 who eats Cabana’s Chicago Skyline and the pin.

I think this might be my match of the night!

POP: Just listen to Taz sing

Luchasaurus and Marko Stunt have teamed up to get some more wins on the board for Jurassic Express. The sound guys give us an extra-long play of Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy, allowing Taz to hilariously fail at singing along. Tony Khan sure is getting his money’s worth! Facing the jungle boys is KC Navarro and Adam Priest. Cool team!

Navarro struts out acting like he’s the goddamn Rock opposite Stunt. Then Stunt stomps him, as little guys do. Navarro has got to be one of the top sellers to appear on Dark, and he makes Stunt’s offense look great.

Luchasaurus comes in and chokeslams both jobbers to death. The end.

MEH: That suplex, tho

Vipress is another jobber pulling double duty tonight. These folks are working hard! She has Diamante.

They face off and exchange forearms. Vipress hits a very clean suplex. Diamante gets angry and comes back with a bunch of flying everythings, some elbows and a whole shed full of clotheslines.

Vipress quickly submits, and it feels like this match never really got off the ground.

POP: Hopkins gets quad-teamed

Woo yeah, it’s Team Taz Time. Powerhouse Hobbs, Ricky Starks and “The Machine” Brian Cage are in trios mode. They got Jake St Patrick, Sage Scott and Chandler Hopkins. Watch out, bros. Cage can kickflip!

Starks and St Patrick open us up with some good, old-fashioned American wrestling. Hobbs and Scott keep the big, heavy sports entertainment going. I feel like these guys would do better on Elevation where we have a couple of oldskool commentators who’d pop for it.

Hobbs wakes us all up with a thundering double forearm/pounce to Hopkins’ face. Hook suplexes the Texan on the outside, then Starks steals the tag and hits his Rochambeau. Before he can cover, Cage tags himself in and drillclaws the dude for the 1, 2, 3. Authoritative.

There is some storyline here about Cage and Starks not wanting to tag together, but that storyline has been dangling for a few weeks now and they need to move it somewhere. Still, solid segment.

POP: Getting in on the action

We got us some women’s trios! The randoms are Ashlex Vox, Vertvixen and Vox’s sister Delmi Exo. They’re facing a boss group of AEW faves in Red Velvet, KiLynn King and Big Swole.

After a brief exchange between King and Vox, we get Swole on the mat, dominating Exo. She tags out to Velvet who struggles a bit against the larger woman. Vox and Vixen make some heelish attacks on the side to keep Velvet isolated.

King with the hot tag! She gets spectacularly clotheslined on the outside by Vertvixen, then the both of them kick each other in the heads. Somewhere it all breaks down and we get some flop-ass topes that everyone sells anyway because that’s what you’re supposed to it, damnit. Good to see the women getting to do the same kind of scrappy nonsense the men get up to. I love this indie shit. It might be a mess, but it’s an entertaining mess.

Velvet finishes it up for the faces. Jade Cargill runs in. Yeah! Let’s go.

WHAT THE POP?

Oh my, this is some kind of booking. We have Michael Nakazawa in Kenny Omega’s assistant mode versus “The Starving Artist” Mike Magnum. Give it to me. Give me all of the comedy wrestling.

Naka is still wearing his headset, and spends the start of the match talking to whoever is on the other end. Magnum lets him go, then chops him, only to have his nipples tweaked in return.

Taz: “the old run into the rope, guy loses balance thing, that works… most of the times”. Then Naka transitions into bouncing Magnum up and down on the ropes, “The Hentai Slide” calls Excalibur, “The Yam Bag Scratch-a-rooni” says Taz. I say: instant classic, five stars. While ref Mike Posey and Nakazawa grapple with a headset, Magnum pulls out his famous paintbrush and… does nothing with it. I was expecting a Happy Little Tree or something.

Naka wins.

POP: Nothing but Miro

Warming up for Dynamite we have “Superbad” Kip Sabian and Miro versus John Skyler and BTE champion, Baron Black.

Miro tosses Black into the barricades. Repeatedly. When he gets into the ring, he smashes Skyler to the mat while Sabian chats to his superbad partner Penelope Ford on the apron.

Skyler taps out. Sabian didn’t even tag in. Black is lying dead somewhere in the audience. The squishiest squash.

POP: Caster in top form

Our headliner tonight is Dark Order’s Alex Reynolds versus The Acclaimed’s Max Caster.

Max Caster cut a promo earlier in the night, and turns out when he’s not spitting douchey raps he has some kind of douchey upper class northeastern accent, which makes me hate him even more.

Oh man. Max’s rap is legendary this week, poking fun at QT’s bald spots and his personal history with Reynolds. He’s about to rhyme Hangman with fake tan, then gets tongue-tied as everyone on commentary busts up laughing, briefly breaking kayfabe before hitting back with “man, I hate you”. Not a bad angle to go when you lost your flow. Amazing. Six stars. I love this stupid asshole.

See, when you get me in a good mood, I can deal with this kind of slow-ass American wrestling. These two guys beat each other up like sloths. Every fall to the mat slaps like a room full of clangy poles. But I’m bought into the Create A Pro alumni as old rivals, so it works. Caster is full of charisma and Reynolds plays a good straight man with a stiff set of moves.

Of course Caster wins, thanks to the heelish machinations of his ringside bud Anthony Bowens. John Silver is not happy. I am. Excellent main event.

This was a patchy episode of Dark, some good, some bad. But the good was very good. I am so pleased that we’re getting to see a bit of comedy wrestling and that the guys are getting the chance to flex their creativity by hamming it up from time to time.

Coming up on Dynamite we’ll see Kip Sabian and Miro versus Orange Cassidy and Chuck Taylor in an Arcade Anarchy street fight! Frankie Kazarian will be welcoming Christian Cage to the AEW fam. Cezar Bononi will job for Jon Moxley. Hikaru Shida and Tay Conti will face Nyla Rose and The Bunny. But, in a twist, the Darkest match of all is going to be Cody Rhodes versus QT Marshall in what is sure to be a spectacularly melodramatic, overacted, bullshit affair that might actually have the side-effect of advancing all these Nightmare Family/Factory storylines that’ve been brewing on Dark over the past few weeks.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Please like/comment/share/etc – our favorite B-shows need all the support they can get! I’ll be back next week to recap all the Dynamite fallout on the undercard.

     

Share this post:

You May Also Like

AEW
AEW Dynamite Pops & Botches Recaps & Reviews
Pops & Botches: AEW Dynamite – 02.09.22
Team Taz off in Taz World - AEW (YouTube)
AEW Dark Elevation Pops & Botches
Pops & Botches: AEW Elevation & Dark – 3.22.2021 & 3.23.2021