Austin and Colten brandish their finger guns - AEW (YouTube)

Pops & Botches: AEW Elevation & Dark – 5.3.2021 & 5.4.2021

AEW Dark Elevation Pops & Botches

 

In a fit of overzealous copyright-enforcement, a bunch of videos disappeared off YouTube last week, including vlogs from both Sammy Guevara and Ethan Page, music videos by Mikey Rukus and dozens of third-party reviews of and reactions to AEW content. For a moment, I thought I’d get a surprise week off. But all returned to normal in time for me to bring you the full YouTube recap. Here’s all the pops and botches of May 3’s Elevation and May 4’s Dark.

Last time on Dark…

Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page started to gel as a team of supervillains. Joey Janela showed us he can do serious wrestling too. Marty Casaus faced Brian Cage in a surprise Lucha Underground reunion. Read it all in our April 26/27 recap.

Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…

Last week’s Dynamite featured a major win for Team Taz, the chokingest faction in AEW. “The Machine” Brian Cage scored a well-deserved clean victory over Adam Page! QT Marshall’s faction got a win too, but then Cody Rhodes appeared, and somehow QT ended up in a figure four leg lock on top of Cody’s branded tour bus! The drama! Tune in next week for the conclusion.

Being The Elite episode 254 featured more of the Young Bucks acting like rich douchebag heels, but thanks to their flat delivery, which makes it sound like they don’t actually believe anything they’re saying, it just makes them come across as even bigger heels than they would’ve if they had taken being a heel seriously. Fantastic work. Also in this episode, Ryan Nemeth admired the moustache grooming of Pretty Peter Avalon and Cezar Bononi.

What happened on episode 318 of Sammy Guevara’s vlog? Cody Rhodes’ Friend-lympics! We got a bench press competition, with the predictable result of Fuego del Sol losing. KiLynn King stole the show when she pulled out “Who’s the Fuego? I’m the Fuego!” Dean Alexander made another cameo too, this time as a calculating serial killer.

Let’s get straight into episode 8 of Monday Night Elevation.

BOTCH: Big bad heel crushes indie star

Elevation tends to have a bit of a soft start for me. Will Miro be able to buck the trend? He’s facing indie badass Will Allday, so there is potential here!

You know what? I’ll let you know more when the quarter-sceen sized ads disappear out of the bottom-left corner. They’re really overkilling this Dynamite promo.

So, yeah, after all the ads finally disappear, Allday unloads with some aerial offense which bounces off the big guy, who comes back with the usual bevy of stomps and kicks. Sigh. Truly the boringest style of wrestling for me.

Miro catches two attempted topes, and rolls Allday back in, and then eventually he wins by submission.

POP: Real horrorshow

Next up, from the Black Hills, we have Abadon, who vomits gore all over the ramp, reflecting my feelings about Elevation’s opening match booking. She is facing Ryo “Aniki” Mizunami.

We know it’s a women’s match, because Paul Wight immediately starts talking about himself.

Mizunami shows she has the physical advantage with a series of shoulder blocks, but then Abadon gives her a zombie stare and it scares Mizunami clear out of the ring. The monster also interrupts Mizunami’s chop sequence with a bite to the arm, which gives her an opening to choke out Mizunami.

Mizunami comes back with some stiff forearms, then a clothesline and some leg drops, but Abadon keeps crawling back up! The crowd (mostly jobbers) start some dueling chants as Mizunami hits a massive spear. She goes for the leg drop from the top turnbuckle, but Abadon sits up to evade that guillotine, then hits back with her Cemetery Drive(r) and gets the win! This is one of her highest-powered wins yet, and should give her a big boost in the title picture.

POP: Palace manages to make Mox interesting

Jon Moxley is up next, facing perky indie champ Andrew Palace.

Palace works pretty well with Moxley. Mox’s character seems to be this aloof bad boy who goes out of his way to present himself as above it all, like a much grumpier version of Orange Cassidy, so Palace carries the whole opening sequence by acting enthusiastic and engaged with every lazy move.

Mox (fittingly) wins with a sleeper hold, but somehow Palace managed to keep this squash interesting. Anyone who’s been reading this column a while knows that Mox is my least favorite main roster guy, so it’s high praise for Palace that he managed to keep me entertained where Kenny Omega did not.

POP: D3 gets Nelsoned

Turning the tables, we have one of my favorite wrestlers: D3! For those following at home, he’s the Italian jobber who dresses like a Roman centurion and enjoys getting beaten up by Gallic barbarians like Preston “10” Vance.

He doesn’t disappoint here, allowing 10 to lift him up and bounce him off the ropes, selling every hit like the Dark Order’s big man just juiced up on magic potion.

Sadly our Roman underdog doesn’t get any offense in at all this match – he’s knocked out by 10’s Full Nelson. He continues to be a fun loser, though.

POP: Battle of the acronyms

Orange Cassidy saunters up to the ring with Kris Statlander. He is facing Long Island legend VSK.

VSK doesn’t wait for OC’s hand-in-the-pockets routine and hits a dropkick. OC slothily turns around and steps over him.

This is a very short fight, but VSK has excellent comic timing, working with OC every step of the way. He lets Cassidy hit him with a big DDT, then counters the Orange Punch with a Spanish Fly, but after getting back up it’s straight into the Beach Break and the pin.

VSK continues to be one of the more disciplined “enhancement talents” AEW have got – he really knows how to make the stars look good, without relegating himself to the role of human punching bag.

BOTCH: FTR bring another snoozer

This is an interesting match that was originally on the card for last week, so I wonder if it might have been held over for some reason? It’s FTR versus Terrence and Terrell Hughes, formerly known as TNT. Now they’re the Hughes Bros.

Terrell starts it out with one of the two FTR guys who I don’t know who it is because our commentary team doesn’t say. It’s the hair guy. He tags out to the bald guy. Okay, the bald guy is Dax Harwood, other guy is Cash Wheeler, and both of them work the same boring style.

Terrell tags out to Terrence who hits a senton, then immediately meets Wheeler’s clothesline. TNT both loose some solid suplexes and bodyslams, and it almost seems like this match might get interesting, but it doesn’t. FTR win.

FINE: The inevitable squash

Next up we have a blowoff match from last week’s tag partner betrayal: Nyla Rose versus Madi Wrenkowski.

Wrenkowski gets straight to business, getting as many hits on the Native Beast as she can, ahead of the inevitable squash.

The inevitable squash happens. It was fine.

BOTCH: Black gets Comoroto’d

Next up we have another fight to keep the feud going between Nightmare Family and The Factory. Baron Black isn’t officially a Nightmare Family member, but he’s part of the Cody Rhodes Friend-lympics storyline on Sammy Guevara’s vlog, so there is some connection there. He’s facing Nick Comoroto.

Comoroto gets Black to the ground almost immediately. It’s sad that Black doesn’t get any offense in here. He is kicked about and powerbombed and that’s all she wrote. Black is way better than this.

DEVELOPMENTAL POP: I guess…

In another probably-a-squash match, Red Velvet will be taking on Reka Tehaka, who we have briefly seen lose to Jade Cargill.

Tehaka has a badass look to her, but she seems pretty green. She struts around and has all the right facial expressions, but she doesn’t maneuver Velvet around the ring slickly enough to make her offense believable.

Tehaka’s most convincing move is a headbutt comeback after kicking out of Velvet’s standing moonsault. Velvet returns with a knee to the stomach and spin kick for the win. This hasn’t been a great night so far, so I’ll give this one a begrudging developmental pop.

POP: Hardy Party figure it out

Private Party are back this week in their original tag team configuration to take on Duke Davis and Ganon Jones (The Other Mane Event).

Davis starts with Marc Quen and throws him straight to the ground. Isiah Kassidy also comes out on the bottom end of his initial exchange. These guys are spending a lot of time staring each other down, but the chemistry works for me. Before long, Quen is somersaulting to the outside and succeeding in doing the high-flying heel gimmick that AEW seems reluctant to push for other teams.

Jones pops out and starts to dominate, but Private Party turn this around with smart tag team work instead of referee distractions. Quen steals a blind tag and flips over his partner to roll Jones up with a sunset flip and quick pin. This is a much better way to have these guys work as heels – fast, devious and mischievous is way more up their alley than slow, brawler heeling and schmoz central distractions.

POP: Just good wrestling

Perhaps the most promising event of the night is Thunder Rosa versus Willow Nightingale, who has been busy working GCW and other indies recently.

Nightingale and Rosa have a clean opening sequence with lots of back-and-forth locks and holds. Both wrestlers have a great sense of positioning for TV, setting up moves so that they look good on camera.

Everything about this match just works. The moves hit hard, the wrestlers give each other space to react and show off their characters, and it ends with not only a win for one of the top women in the division, but a noble loss for the newcomer. Awesome stuff. I hope we can see more of Nightingale in the months and years to come.

POP: QT’s bad mood

QT Marshall has picked out a Nightmare Factory jobber to help get his AEW wins up. The lucky alumnus is Dillon McQueen, a young lad with a sparkly pink outfit, and a crown.

McQueen takes two slaps to the face before he unleashes a bunch of strikes on his former trainer. QT taught the kid everything he knows, though, and easily catches him with a boot to the face and vicious lariat. Then it’s punch punch punch to the face and the kid’s nose busts open.

With bloodied face, McQueen tries to come back, but Aaron Solow on the outside trips him and QT hits the Diamond Cutter and Cross Rhodes for the win. After the bell, Nick Comoroto lifts the steel steps up to the ramp, and QT piledrives the poor kid right on top of them.

This is how you do a squash! There’s a legit history between the two competitors, and one of them is using his dominance to further another feud, and the violence he unleashes is stiff enough to bloody up his opponent… That’s a fight! I wish all squashes on Elevation were as consequential as this one.

POP: Dark heroes elevate our moods

For our cooldown, we have the Very Dark match-up of Chaos Project versus Gunn Club!

Austin Gunn opens it by firing off a bunch of imaginary pistol shots, so naturally Luther has to pause to check if he’s bleeding. “Shut up!” “No, you shut up!” This is like a playground fight, and it’s glorious. Serpentico tags in and tries to have a more serious exchange with Colten. Of course, then the Gunns set up their basketball hoop spot and Serpentico has to crawl back to hug daddy Luther.

Luther has some fun dialog with ref Aubrey Edwards while beating down on Austin, then he tags Serpentico in and repeatedly uses his head to bludgeon the young Gunn. Serpentico hits some stiff double axe handles, but he can’t take Austin down on his own, so Luther grabs his partner’s legs and throws him out of the ring, which results in Austin getting DDTed by proxy. These guys are so much fun.

Colten finally gets the hot tag and splashes, slams and dropkicks everyone before hitting the Colt 45 for the win.

Hysterical.

EH: Let’s cool it with the ref distractions

Our headliner tonight is Matt Hardy and The Blade (representing Hardy Family Office) versus Colt “Boom Boom” Cabana and Alan “5” Angels (representing Dark Order).

Hardy quickly isolates 5 and starts punishing him. A quick escape sends Cabana in to face off with Blade. Cabana plays this match pretty straight, allowing himself to get into a stiff battle with Blade. In what is sadly now a surprise to nobody, ref Bryce Remsburg gets inexplicably distracted while Matt and his goons beat down on Cabana outside the ring. I wonder if Remsburg is getting a cut of the Hardy Family Office winnings?

In a subversive move, little Angels gets the hot tag and almost takes out both The Blade and Matt Hardy! But then Bunny runs distraction, 5 gets cheapshotted by Private Party, and it all falls apart. Hardy hits the Leech submission and Remsburg calls for the bell.

Dark Order seriously need to put these Hardy assholes into a steel cage where they can have a decent showdown without outside interference.

I wasn’t too impressed by this week’s Elevation, despite some decent matches. I’m finding it harder and harder to overlook the commentary. I’ve reached the point of fast-forwarding between matches just so I don’t have to stretch out the time listening to Paul Wight putting himself over and Tony Schiavone trying to feign excitement for performers he doesn’t seem to care much about. To me, these two are just not the right pair to call a show that features as much indie and unsigned talent as Elevation still does. I feel like their attitude pulls down matches that I otherwise might be hyped for, and they make the matches that are not my taste to begin with just crushingly boring.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’d still be watching Elevation if I wasn’t writing this recap each week. Does that mean I’ll give up on the Monday night recaps? You’ll have to come back next week to find out!

In the mean time, let cue up episode 87 of the superior show…

Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.

POP: Opening squash

Opening our show is Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs. In the jobber corner is Brick Aldridge and Aaron Frye…

…both of whom get killed to the death by Hobbs in about 20 seconds. Starks didn’t even tag in. Big, bad powerhouse squash.

POP: Wham bam thank you ma’am

After facing one another last week in a tag bout, “Legit” Leyla Hirsch and Diamante will duke it out.

The match starts with shoving and some mat wrestling, from the both of them! Diamante looks to have surprised Hirsch with her amateur skills, and she takes advantage with a stunner and a dropkick! But Hirsch comes back and shows she has more than just a string of suplexes up her sleeve – it’s drop kicks and chops all round!

It’s a massively explosive match, with a whole lot of action packed into the short runtime. Hirsch finishes Diamante off with her arm bar.

FINE: The Blonds do their thing

Will Varsity Blonds break free of their midcardy curse? Like a can of Aqua Net, Liam Gray and Adrian Alanis are ready to elevate the flowing manes to the next level.

Gray and Alanis quickly charge the Blonds, but Brian Pillman Jr and Griff Garrison counter with synchronized suplexes and shoulderblocks to halt the charge.

Taz and Excalibur briefly mention the current two-part episode of Dark Side of the Ring, which is focusing on the life and untimely death of Brian Pillman senior. It’s a compelling show, so check it out if you’re interested in learning a bit more about the gritty history of this wonderful thing we call pro wrestling.

Back in the ring, The Skulk are really taking it to Pillman junior. Garrison tags in and hits a few splashes, then Pillman connects with a flying clothesline and Alanis eats the pin. It was… fine.

The Blonds are a great duo, cheerful young lads with nice throwback moves and a cool theme song, but they’re still missing some magic for now.

POP: SCU do their thing too

SCU are still on the march to their faceoff (and possible Last Match Ever) with the Young Bucks. Today their opponents are the random team of Spencer Slade and Jake St Patrick.

Frankie Kazarian starts the lesson with St Patrick. St Patrick goes move-for-move with the vet and continues to quietly stand out amongst our Dark jobber crew. Christopher Daniels wrestles St Patrick to the corner, then it’s Slade in the ring getting beaten down by both Californians.

SCU somewhat awkwardly set up their BME finisher, and it’s another clean win for the veterans.

POP: Swole begins her odyssey

Facing Big Swole from the women’s face clique is newcomer Megan Bayne. Bayne is billed from Greece and is wearing a feathered headpiece that has her looking like an Amazon queen.

When she gets up next to Swole she looks even more Amazonian, standing almost a head taller. Swole gets to play the cheeky rogue in this fight, though, and that’s a role that works well for her, stealing a quick elbow to the face here and snap kick to the calves there.

Bayne and Swole bring a bit of storytelling to the match, which helps to sell some of the clumsier transitions. Bayne sells her slowness as part of the big woman gimmick and Swole hits a few “now you really pissed me off” kicks, then submits the former OVW champ for the win.

POP: Joey Janela, still funny

Best-named wrestler Kit Sacket’s back! He’s teaming with Justin Law to take on fan faves Sonny Kiss and Joey Janela. Janela is running about like Speedy Gonzales! Woo!

The bell rings and Janela clotheslines poor Law about 17 times. Sacket makes his way into the ring and receives an uppercut and dropkick for his bravery. Sacket eventually pulls himself together and hits a headbutt, then sets up Kiss to be double axe handled by Law, but Kiss dodges out of the way and Law smacks Sacket in the head instead. Perfect timing.

Law gets the shit utterly kicked out of him by Janela, then Kiss does the splits right on his chest. Our Jersey Boys win easily the most hilarious match of the night.

POP: Give me a J

We have another debuting talent tonight – Julia Hart, who quickly loses her pom poms to the jobber audience at ringside. She’s facing KiLynn King.

There’s something amusing about someone with a cheerleader gimmick wearing a top with her own name on it. King knocks the clever rookie over, then follows it with some arm drags, body slam and kick to the chest.

Hart hits a bit of offense, but despite her entertaining gimmick this match is all about King. Our Dark monarch scores another win.

POP: PAC

In one of the most unexpected matches of the night, Chaos Project’s Serpentico is getting a full-entrance, full-pyro fight versus Death Triangle’s PAC.

Serpentico is straight out the gate with a drop kick and tope suicida, but PAC bounces back with a backbreaker and snap suplex. It’s blisteringly efficient.

PAC hits a tombstone piledriver before tapping Serpentico out. Short, sweet and stiff as hell.

POP: Bunny takes care of business

Also tonight we have The Bunny versus Leila Grey. The Bunny enters the ring unaccompanied, and it adds a lot to her character to not have five Hardy goons backing her up.

As usual, Allie doesn’t dazzle us with technical prowess, but she lives and breathes her Bunny character at every step. She hunches her shoulders, cocks her head, flicks her tongue, then yells at ref Aubrey Edwards when she’s told to break off at the five count. It’s a magical character.

Grey plays the role of punching bag, which is exactly the kind of selling that Bunny needs to make her character work. Down The Rabbit Hole and it’s done.

POP: All about the character

David Ali and Vary Morales are standing in the jobber corner. Who will they face? Oh no. It’s The Acclaimed.

Max Caster doesn’t bother to cut a diss rap on the jobbers this time, instead he welcomes back his partner Anthony Bowens and urges the audience to clap for him. Which, of course, just makes them boo harder. So then they try make Morales and Ali clap for them. The jobbers do not oblige. It’s a delight.

Bowens unloads on Morales once the levity subsides. Ali doesn’t fare much better. The kid does hit a nice springboard shoulderblock, though. Morales comes back in to eat the pin and we’re done.

By the way, if you ever wondered why Caster kisses the hands of his opponents…

FINE: It’s just fine

Terrence and Terrell Hughes are pulling double duty this week (or two weeks ago?) to work with Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page.

Terrence and Sky lock up in a test of strength, which Terrence wins. Page tags in, does a lap round the ring, then tags back out, only to surprise Terrence from behind with a cheap shot. Terrell comes to his brother’s aid and the ring starts echoing with the sound of these heavier (by AEW standards) competitors slamming and crashing their bodies to the canvas in that old-fashioned American pro wrestling style.

Sky sets up the heel hook submission for the win. It’s fine.

POP: Good ol’ Dark trios action

Our pretty stable stable now has a formal name – The Pretty Picture. Unfortunately they have abandoned their Sexy Sax Man music and replaced it with a generic hip-hop beat. Fortunately, it’s still Cezar “Daddy” Bononi, “Hollywood Hunk” Ryan Nemeth, “Blue Collar Badass” JD Drake and none other than “Pretty” Peter Avalon, rolling in on his heart-shaped trolley. PPA is still benched with an injury so they’re in trios mode tonight versus a Dark Order trio of Evil Uno, Stu Grayson and Alex Reynolds.

Drake has had such a turnaround for me since he joined the Pretties. He still works a fairly bruiser style, but with him playing a Village People-esque straight man against his stablemates’ casual flamboyance, it makes the gimmick work better for me. Reynolds eats the bulk of the Pretties’ offense, taking hits from everyone before hitting a moonsault on Drake and escaping to his corner.

Grayson goes hog wild on everyone, culminating in tope con hilo. Evil Uno takes a blind tag and senton bombs on Drake. Bononi gets caught posing with Nemeth, then finds his hands full catching a terrified PPA… Which leaves Nemeth open for the Fatality. 1, 2, 3 – it’s Dark Order!

DEVELOPMENTAL POP: Taking flight

Dante Martin is getting another singles outing! This kid’s getting the best training anyone in wrestling could dream of. He’s facing “The Radioactive Papi” Danny Limelight.

Limelight plays it a little cocky here (as he should), but works cleanly together with Martin to give us a nice progression from technical opening through to strikes and eventually the aerial action we’re all waiting for.

This isn’t quite the barnburner it will be when they meet again in a couple years, but it is already very good. Limelight hits two out of three amigos, then a swinging neckbreaker, but Martin comes back with a 450! Limelight rolls out of the way and puts the kid into a triangle choke! But Martin flips out! Then Limelight’s clothesline turns Martin completely inside-out.

Martin with the shotgun dropkick, gutbuster and his second 450 connects for the win.

MINIPOP: Not with a bang

Our last match of the night is Chaos Project’s Luther versus “The Murderhawk Monster” Lance Archer. Jake “The Snake” Roberts on commentary.

Serpentico tries to surprise Archer on the ramp, but gets tossed away. Archer quickly starts beating down on Luther, and the moment he takes a break, Luther starts haranguing the ref so that discarded Serpentico can come back to, well, cower before Archer. This is enough of a distraction for Luther to get a soft strike in on Archer’s exposed back.

It’s all a bit absurd, Serpentico dancing about to taunt Archer, but then running away because he knows he can’t win the fight. Meanwhile Luther is so entertained by his minion’s antics that he forgets to properly take advantage. This relationship that Chaos Project have is one of the weirdest and yet most charming things going in AEW.

Later on, “Fuego del Sol” (not sure if it was actually Fuego or just someone in his mask) takes out Serpentico and they go running off into the back. Luther tries to set up the Luther Bomb, but with his sidekick’s mojo gone (or more likely because Archer is a much bigger guy than he’s used to lifting) he doesn’t land it. Archer hits the Hellacoaster for the win.

Bit slow and soft-hitting for a main event, but quirky and entertaining nonetheless. Minipop!

As usual, I was well entertained by Dark this week. It had its ups and downs, but the contrast with Elevation definitely helps to emphasize its strengths. This week we didn’t get any promos, but the in-ring character work was fairly strong. It’s still my favorite show in the AEW line-up.

Dynamite tonight will be dominated by the Blood and Guts match between The Pinnacle and Inner Circle. I’m not really a fan of these long, drawn-out PPV-style matches, but I’m sure both teams will put on an action-packed, stunt-filled show. The whole show feels a bit like a mini-PPV: we’re also getting Kenny Omega and MT Nakazawa versus Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley, we’re getting Cody Rhodes versus QT Marshall redux, and we’re getting a 4-way tag match between all the top contenders for the title. Exciting stuff! Enjoy the show, and join me back here next week for more YouTube updates.

     

Share this post:

You May Also Like

Screengrab: TNT
AEW Dynamite Pops & Botches
Pops and Botches: AEW Dynamite – 7.22.2020
AEW Brass Ring Post Awards Bullet Club GCW Impact Indies Inspire A.D. Meta News NJPW NWA ROH WWE
2021 Brass Ring Post Awards: Nominations Now Open!