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Pops & Botches: AEW Dark – 5.25.2021

AEW Dark Pops & Botches

 

It’s May 25. You know what that means. My province initiated their reopening plan! Step one: Bars! Churches! Gyms! There’s something for everyone! ‘Tis a joyous day. Also, AEW Dark aired, and you can click through for ye joyous recap.

Last time on Dark…

Serpentico earned a rare win over Sonny Kiss. Kris Statlander and Diamante threw down, hard. Angélico and Vary Morales brought the lucha. Matt Sydal and Marty Casaus brought the underground. Read up on all the details in our May 18 recap.

Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…

Dynamite last week featured a great match between Serena Deeb and Red Velvet for the NWA title (Deeb retained). We also saw a bunch of midcard talent in action, it was fine. The Young Bucks sprayed cold spray in the face of Julia Hart during their match with the Varsity Blonds. Missed opportunity to do a spray tan bit, to be honest.

Being The Elite episode 257 was a massive 35 minute instalment. There was a fair bit of filler, but one neat development was the Bucks making an executive decision to get the BTE Championship back onto their show, setting up a weird table hockey game so Brandon Cutler could win it back off Charlie Ramone from Sammy Guevara’s vlog. Dark Order had a fun bit where they all drew pictures and Stu Grayson found a clue that someone else might remember Anna Jay after all. All four Best Friends and NJPW guest star Rocky Romero answered some mail. They also kicked John Silver in the nuts. In other news, Pretty stable got together for a team-building yoga sesh.

Not to be outdone, Sammy Guevara brought us 30 minutes of content in episode 321 of his vlog. 10 minutes of it is given over to footage from the post-pandemic convention circuit, still a few months into the future in my corner of the world. During the con, Nyla Rose cut a promo on Bea Priestley. Meanwhile, Cody Rhodes ran a Zoom-based spelling bee round in the Friendlympics, and it was one of the funniest damn things ever.

As has become a bit of a trend, I didn’t watch Elevation, but episode 11 did feature a few visiting NJPW stars, if you’re into that sort of thing. The word is commentary still sucks.

Let’s cue up episode 90.

Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.

SQUASH: The new tradition

Opening our show is The Factory’s squash man Nick Comoroto. He’s facing Duke Davis, who we’ve previously seen tagging with Ganon Jones.

Davis gets squashed. Is this the new Dark tradition? Opening the show with a squash that takes less time to pin than the credits took to roll?

QT Marshall on the side of the ring called over Justin Roberts to announce another match: Ganon Jones versus Aaron Solow.

Jones gets a couple of hits in on Solow, but the Factory’s west coast extra sets up a clunky face-planting Pedigree for the win.

BOTCH: Developmental developmental

Next up we have Nightmare Factory alumnus Dillon McQueen. He is facing Dark Order’s Preston “10” Vance.

McQueen is a pretty big dude, standing nose-to-nose with 10 and able to weather his chops. McQueen tries hard to get the crowd behind him, but he doesn’t have a very strong character yet, and his moves don’t land with the fluidity that more experienced talents can deliver.

10 isn’t a terribly exciting wrestler himself, but he does a decent job here getting his own moveset over. It does look more meaty against an opponent who can take a bit of punishment. 10 gets the win. I’m still not sold on him.

POP: Too short, but sweet

Dark Order’s Evil Uno and Colt Cabana are tagging together again this week. I’m not sure if Stu Grayson is sick or these two are just enjoying working together as comedy duo. They are facing SoCal jobbers Simon Lotto and Steven Andrews, who previously competed as “local jobbers” on the early pandemic era episodes of BTE.

This match is way too short. Both Lotto and Andrews are fairly good foils for the veterans, but it feels like we don’t get to see enough of the spots. The finishing sequence features Evil Uno’s cool ripcord flatliner again, which earns the match a pop.

POP: King brings the pain

Our prerecorded show suddenly jumps forward into the night time to bring us the team of Big Swole and KiLynn King versus Madi Wrenkowski and The Bunny.

King and The Bunny show some real anger coming out of last week’s fight on Elevation (won by Allie). King makes short work of Wrenkowski then furiously pulls The Bunny into the ring for a clobbering. The Bunny escapes and the match gets under control with Swole and Wrenkowski.

The Bunny starts taking cheap shots at Swole from the outside, then tags in to punish her legally. Swole eventually escapes to King who comes back in full berserker mode and absolutely kicks the shit out of Wrenkowski. It’s awesome. Wrenkowski manages to take control with a facebuster, but when she goes to tag out Allie isn’t there, so Swole hits the Dirty Dancing and gets the pin.

This was the first legitimately good match of the night. King looked great and it also advanced the running storyline of Wrenkowski getting screwed over by her tag partners. Good stuff.

BOTCH: For not pulling a gimmick from the fanny pack

Next up is Billy and Colten Gunn versus the debuting Kal Herro and Liam Gray.

Kal Herro has a gold fanny pack, which is of questionable legality. Gray assures referee Aubrey Edwards that “it’s just a belt”. Is this going to be Chekhov’s fanny pack?

It doesn’t really matter because Billy quickly takes control of the match after exchanging some holds with Herro. Colten gets a few hits in, but Billy wants back in and closed-fist bops Herro in the head, sending a message to Anthony Ogogo, who punched his son Austin out last week on Dynamite. (No news yet from the sheets as to whether Austin’s kayfabe injury will having him joining Kip Sabian, Darius Martin, John Silver, Ricky Starks, The Butcher and Anna Jay on the shoot injury bench.)

Liam Gray finally gets a hot tag and hits some nice kicks, then goes for a tope suicida but Billy evades and he goes straight into the concrete. Ouch! Back in the ring, Colten hits the Colt 45 and it’s done.

This was a much more vicious, punishing outing from Gunn Club. A real No More Mr Nice Guy swerve. I’m not sure I like them as angry dudes, but it is necessary for storyline reasons, so I’ll give it a pass. The reason this match gets a botch? We didn’t get to see what was in the fanny pack!

But, to give the kid credit, I really hope we get to see him again. His local news anchors were pumped too.

POP: From what I could see, anyway

More women’s action coming up – it’s “Legit” Leyla Hirsch versus Vertvixen. Ricky Starks joins us on commentary.

Hirsch and Vixen get straight into business. Starks and Taz are rambling on about some thing or other, but we’ve got serious action in the ring. Perhaps they’re distracted by the massive ads that are taking up a quarter of the screen. It might just be my imagination, but it seems that they save these ads for the women’s matches, which is bullshit because so far the women have given us the best matches of the night.

When the ads go away, there’s all of 30 seconds left in the match, and Hirsch takes it with a quick arm bar.

POP: A fine debut

Dante Martin’s opponent this week is debuting talent Jason Hotch. I believe Hotch wrestles on the indies as Jason Page, but we’re getting way too many pages and cages in AEW, so I get why they changed it.

Hotch has some words with Martin to establish himself as a heel from the gate. Hotch keeps pace with the young high flyer, giving back as good as he gets. The highlight was that weird spinning backbreaker where he spun the kid around and backbroke him over his own back. Was it a botch? I don’t know. It looked cool.

Martin comes back with an enziguri, top-rope moonsault and flying crossbody, then hits his 450 for the win. Not bad. I’d be keen to see Hotch back.

POP: Taking care of business

Reka Tehaka returns this week to face up-and-coming singles star Diamante.

Diamante is really growing into her character as a mean, badass wrestler. Tehaka does a good job selling Diamante’s strikes, then hits her headbutt for the comeback!

Diamante eventually takes it with a Code Red. She looked good, and so did Tehaka.

POP: Janela gets silly

Time for some indie nonsense. It’s Joey Janela versus Bear Bronson! The bears have had several messy but entertaining encounters with Sonny and Joey, will this continue the trend?

Janela and Bronson also have the first part of their match covered up by ads, but it’s less annoying because they spend several minutes glaring and yelling at one another before launching into it for realsies. When the ads are gone, Janela does charming but foolish strut and then gets punched clean out of the ring by Bronson. Beautiful.

When Janela makes it back to the ring it’s all Bronson all the time. Janela eats a half dozen clotheslines before coming back with a quick leg attack and tries a roll-up, but Bronson just drops his ass straight onto Janela’s chest. Bronson hits a few more sentons and slams, but our Jersey bad boy just won’t quit!

This was exactly the kind of slow match that usually isn’t my jam, but something about Janela’s blasé messiness sells it for me. I mean, he finally won it with a lazy elbow drop.

Later in the night Janela informs us that Bad Boy Summer is here: skinny margaritas, tanning on the beach and “beautiful women sucking on my nips, Alex”. It’s a delight.

POP: Bucket hat army

Coming next we have Angélico versus Occult Pro Wrestling Star RYZIN. Angélico cut a brief promo earlier in the night that tied his technical wrestling chops to his awful dancing, and this might be a gimmick that could go somewhere for the guy.

Angélico’s técnico opening sequence with Ryzin looks fantastic, mostly due to Ryzin’s epic selling of every little limb twist. Ryzin even gets the chance to taunt Angélico for a bit. Excalibur takes the time to educate us about the origin of the Manhattan drop, much to Taz’s annoyance.

Angélico works his way through a few more submissions and gets the win with his Navarro Death Roll. At the end of the match he spends some time teaching referee Rick Knox to mime.

POP: Hart turns

Both Tesha Price and Julia Hart are winless in AEW – not for long, because they’re facing off tonight!

Hart started out with a self-centered cheerleader gimmick, but since she allied with Varsity Blonds she’s turned all-American face. That actually gives Price a chance to lean hard into her unhinged character in this match.

The crowd is totally into it, booing the hell out of Price and starting a “J-U-L-I-A” chant for the cheerleader. The massive response from the crowd really adds something to this match, because Hart is still pretty green moves-wise.

Hart gets her first win with a splitting leg drop, and poor Price continues looking up at the lights.

POP: Lucha redux

Our headliner tonight is “The Machine” Brian Cage versus “The Concrete Rose” Sonny Kiss.

Kiss connects with kick after kick, trying to take Cage down before he can do any serious damage. Eventually Cage counters an attack and then he throws Kiss straight into the steel ring post, following it with a Boston crab on the top ropes!

Kiss comes back with some beautiful aerial work including a hurricanrana, tope suicida and flying crossbody, but the Machine stops the momentum with a big ol’ neckbreaker. Kiss tries the splitting leg drop that helped Julia Hart to win her match, but Cage is too tough and kicks out. The Machine wins with a Weapon X.

After the bell, Hook starts beating down Kiss, and Joey Janela makes a big show of wandering around on-stage, not saving his tag partner. He doesn’t walk out through the heel tunnel, but he does walk out, leaving his partner to be killed by Team Taz. What’s to become of our Jersey boys, Sonny and Joey? Tune in next week, etc etc.

This was an okay episode of Dark. There were no real stand-out matches for me, but on the whole I was entertained. I really hope they do something about the ads in the corner of the screen, though. I understand that AEW wants to use the YouTube shows as a draw for the mobile games and the PPVs, but obstructing a large part of the action for a couple minutes each match really takes away from the enjoyment. It’s especially egregious on the shorter and more explosive matches where all the action is front-loaded. By the time the ads go away we missed it all!

Sadly, there is no Dynamite tonight. It has been shuffled along to Friday due to the NBA playoffs, which also means there will be no Friday Night Dark for me to recap ahead of the Double or Nothing PPV. The big match of interest to Dark fans is – as I predicted a couple weeks back – Dante Martin versus Miro for the TNT championship. Miro will surely give the kid a clobbering for his first defense, but it’ll be great to see him show off his new singles skills on the main stage. The other matches are also predictable filler leading into the PPV. If something exciting happens, I’ll be sure to let you know next week.

The PPV itself is all main roster big time matches that will probably be awesome, but the women’s lineup is very thin, so they might try to balance that out by putting some sick women’s action on the pre-show. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Enjoy the weekend, wrestlefans!

     

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