June 8, now known as the day half the internet broke and then the company who broke it saw their stock rocket. Also, it’s my dad’s birthday. I forgot to email, so happy birthday da’! Fortunately, broken internets and mass guru meditation couldn’t stop the wrestles. Here’s our recap for everyone’s favorite YouTube B-show AEW Dark!
Last time on Dark…
Last week’s Dark was a pint-sized episode that takes shorter to watch than this paragraph will take to type. One line summary: the crowds came back and everyone was pumped. Read more in our June 1 recap.
Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…
Robert’s still working on the recap for last week’s Dynamite, but check out his Double or Nothing report in the mean time. Bachur brought us coverage on NJPW’s Dominion too.
From the Dark perspective, last week’s Dynamite was pretty great. Dustin Rhodes headlined in a big, brawlin’ bullrope match with Nick Comoroto. Anthony Ogogo took advantage of a distraction to biff Cody Rhodes (again) and give QT Marshall an opening to pin him. It’s worth checking the YouTube highlights to get up to date on that feud. Meanwhile Andrade (of CMLL, NJPW and NXT fame) appeared, to a disappointingly muted crowd reaction.
Being The Elite episode 259 opens with a bit of dialog explaining how Brandon Cutler came to cheat to help the Young Bucks win over Death Triangle last week. Dude would’ve been better off sticking with Peter Avalon at this rate. The Pretty one appears too, in a very short bit with all the Wingmen plus John Silver. Amusing.
Episode 323 of Sammy Guevara’s vlog also had some continuity from Dynamite – Dustin Rhodes gave Fuego del Sol a fatherly talk after his thwarted attempt to interfere in the bullrope match. Sammy Guevara and Isiah Kassidy unveiled a new handshake. It was fine.
Let’s get episode 92 on the go.
Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.
BOTCH: Beaten back to last year
Opening our show tonight is the best wrestling name since Kit Sackett – Zicky Dice! He is facing “Murderhawk Monster” Lance Archer fresh off a loss to Miro. Good luck, Dice man.
Well, Archer just charges in rolling the already-clobbered Dice ahead of him. Dice throws some folded playing cards in his face, but that’s the only hit he gets. Archer kills him.
I guess we’ve regressed to last year’s version of Lance Archer, which sucked. Boo.
POP: Return of the Amityville realtor
Abadon has had a strange run on AEW, basically spending an entire year defeating everyone except for Hikaru Shida. She has easily got the best (literal) monster gimmick in the promotion, but she hasn’t really broken out beyond appearing as a novelty act. Tonight is unlikely to be any different, versus jobber-entranced Willow Nightingale.
Abadon drives Nightingale’s skull into the floor, then scares ref Mike Posey halfway out of the ring. Ricky Starks on commentary gives us a few reaction GIFs, which of course are half-obscured by the ads overlaid in the corner of the screen.
Nightingale puts the zombie into a choke-hold, but Abadon counters by biting her arm. CHOMP! BRAINS! I don’t care if it’s a novelty act, because it’s a very entertaining one. Abadon hits a DDT for the win.
POP: Hoss-erific
Cezar Bononi heads into the ring with all of the Wingmen in tow. He sports a very un-pretty shiner, but it does give him a bit of street cred versus the massive bruiser he’s been booked to fight: Cyrus the motherfuckin’ Destroyer!
Bononi is a big man. Cyrus is a bigger man. As we know from Bononi’s battles with Billy Gunn, it’s the daddies that bring out the best in the Brazilian. After a few heavy clashes, both athletes roll out of the ring. Bononi distracts ref Aubrey Edwards, which gives Ryan Nemeth an opening to dramatically run halfway round the ring, then hit a crossbody on the giant. He bounces off and flops to the ground like a limp noodle. It’s an absolutely hilarious spot.
Back in the ring a whole bunch of meat slaps some more meat. Cyrus misses a moonsault, which is just enough for Bononi to hit a slam and get the win. Meaty.
POP: Angélico’s slow push
Earlier in the evening Matt Hardy cut a promo with TH2, which was sorely needed because their own promos don’t seem to go over very well in AEW. In the segment, Angélico agreed to a contract to fight Christian Cage on Hardy’s behalf. Tonight he also gets a warmup, versus indie mainstay Matthew Justice.
Justice hits a wicked spear right out of the gate, forcing Angélico to escape out of the ring. Then he takes a wild dive straight into the barricades, missing Angélico entirely. I hope that’s part of his hardcore gimmick because it looked painful. Angélico comes back with some heelish strikes and rudo submissions, but the crowd is behind the fearless visitor!
Too bad, crowd. All y’all marks didn’t pop for Andrade, you deserve to have your hopes crushed. Angélico hits the Navarro Death Roll to tap out the hardcore hero.
POP: Curiosity piqued
It’s time for the other Brazilian on the roster! Tay Conti is here, accompanied by Negative One. She’s facing Natalia Markova, who has had an all-Russians match versus Leyla Hirsch on Elevation, but is debuting tonight for the first time on Dark.
Markova immediately taunts Conti with an exaggerated samba step. Markova has the classic villainess gimmick down pat, but her moves don’t land as cleanly as Conti’s, which makes parts of the match a bit awkward to watch.
Conti wins with the DDTai. Markova has some work to do to compete with the top talent on AEW, but her gimmick feels strong. I’d be happy to see her again.
POP: Confusing name, decent air
Chaos Project is together again! Their opponents are the mystery jobber duo of JP and Tommy Daily.
Taz helpfully drops the hint that the jobbers share a “middle name” of Grayson. Which also is the name emblazoned across their trunks. I can’t decide if this new trend of renaming jobbers whose surnames match those of existing talent is annoying or amusing. They should just go full Johnny Mundo and rename every jobber who appears here Firstname Daily. But I digress. These dudes are known on the indies as The Amazing Graysons.
The shining 🃏 pic.twitter.com/jnov9qCRuN
— TommyGrayson94 (@TommyGrayson94) June 9, 2021
Tommy isn’t a half bad wrestler. He hits some high-flying maneuvers in between getting kicked and tossed around by Luther. JP gets the hot tag and drop kicks all over the show.
I’m not knocking anymore, I’m breaking in #aew #aewdark #wrestling #tonight #youtube #prowrestling #tagteam #brothers #chaosproject #tnt #aewdon pic.twitter.com/EQ2Tx2A0Me
— JP Grayson (@JPGrayson1) June 9, 2021
This match is full-blown Chaos Project. Scruffy, scrappy, always looking a bit like it’ll go off the rails, but still kinda fun. They win it, of course, with their Creeping Death tandem finisher.
On this weeks episode of
“Why, Luther, Why?!”#AEWDark @KillLutherKill pic.twitter.com/qNb1jfcmWh
— SNAKEMAN (Television Goon) 🐍👑 (@KingSerpentico) June 9, 2021
POP: Goldilocks showdown
Marko Stunt is getting a solo match! He’s facing Ariel Dominguez, who we last saw in action November last year.
Stunt and Dominguez have a real blast during this battle, I’m sure it’s rare that they both get to fight people more or less their own size. The crowd is solidly behind Stunt, but both athletes get to connect with some big spots.
Stunt wins with a huge clothesline then a Sliced Bread setup that collapses into something different which Taz names Half Slice Bread, like, The English Muffin. This commentary team, you guys. They are the best.
POP: Solid wrestling
Earlier in the night Alex Marvez interviewed Joey Janela. Janela is going all in on his nipple fetish promos, and it’s creepylarious. Sonny Kiss showed up to ask if the Bad Boy could be his cornerman, and Janela agreed… But did he show? No, he did not show. You’re killing me Joey!
.@alexmarvez tries to get an injury update from @JANELABABY
Tune into #AEWDark now – https://t.co/t8yeJygNef pic.twitter.com/fgOS2ipkaQ— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) June 8, 2021
Sonny Kiss, all on his own, faces Aaron Solow, accompanied by QT Marshall and Nick Comoroto. Oof.
Kiss starts the match strong, hitting several head scissor takedowns and a crossbody. Solow turns it around and the match has a good back-and-forth that shows off both talents. Surprisingly, Solow wins the match clean, which makes it feel like the Janela angle didn’t go anywhere.
Except then Comoroto starts the post-match beatdown. And Janela isn’t there. Poor Sonny.
POP: Beast squash
Vickie Guerrero interrupts ring announcer Justin Roberts to usher in Nyla Rose. Her opponent is debuting Chicagoan, Missa Kate.
Kate looks pretty good, when she isn’t getting clobbered by Rose. Actually, she looks good when she is being clobbered too. Great selling. This is nothing more than a squash match, but somehow it’s more entertaining than Archer’s opener.
Rose wins. Taz sings. Post-match Guerrero reveals a new Nyla Rose T-shirt: “I survived Nyla and all I got was this T-shirt”, and drapes it over Kate like a funeral shroud. Fantastic.
MEH: QT gets clinical
The Factory are back in business: QT Marshall is taking on Bear Bronson.
The match is a fairly predictable American style wrestling affair till Bronson gets QT to the outside, then the big dude dives out. Topeeee! On the outside QT uses heel tactics to regain control. Powerslam! Diving headbutt! 1, 2… The bear kicks out!
There’s nothing very exciting about this match, but both Bronson and QT hit just about every move on Wikipedia. It’s like the opposite of a Chaos Project match – everything is clean and well-executed, but it’s all a bit dispassionate.
QT wins with the Diamond Cutter DDT.
Big wins for #theFactory tonight on #AEWDark, but QT Marshall wants to talk about last week’s #AEWDynamite where he scored the biggest pin fall win of his career, by pinning @CodyRhodes – after @anthonyogogo knocked him out.
Watch #AEWDark now – https://t.co/t8yeJygNef pic.twitter.com/CEXewdSvEN— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) June 9, 2021
POP: Rosa gets technical
Megan Bayne, the Greek goddess is back! She towers over her opponent, Thunder Rosa.
Rosa comes into this match leaning heavy on amateur wrestling techniques to get Bayne to the mat and twist the shit out of her ankle. There are some beautiful sequences here, where Rosa jumps onto the bigger woman then slips and slides through her legs to land another submission hold.
Eventually Bayne submits. This was a one-sided battle, but it showed Thunder Rosa to be a formidable talent, a giant killer! Great stuff.
FINE: Trios trios trios
YES! Kit Sackett is back-et! He is being jobber-teamed with Justin Law and Dan Barry to take on Dark Order’s Preston “10” Vance, Stu “2” Grayson and Colt “Boom Boom” Cabana. Barry is wearing a sleeveless Hawaiian shirt! It is bold fashion statement that absolutely should become a thing.
Anyway, Sackett is in first, and he takes a beating. So does Law. But here is Barry! He gets in with old friend Cabana and they chain together some dad bod spots. Barry stops Grayson in his tracks then tags out to Law and we get the usual end-of-match trios disintegration where everyone bops everyone.
Grayson takes out Law for the win.
Also.
That cool Magic GIF you’ve always wanted.
pic.twitter.com/MUCpxTX85D— Colt Cabana (@ColtCabana) June 8, 2021
PATCHY: Swole’s night
The #RSK face clique is in action tonight, this time with Big Swole and KiLynn King teamed up. They awkwardly dance into the ring to face jobber-entranced Sea Stars (Ashley Vox and Delmi Exo).
Swole hits a bunch of hammily built up elbow drops, and they are perfect. While she’s strutting and posing, Vox gets back control and tags out to Exo who slows the match right down.
After the hot tag KiLynn King runs wild on everyone and hits the Kingdom Falls on Exo for the win.
POP: JUST. POP.
Our headliner tonight is Matt Sydal versus Dante Martin. Highflyers ahoy!
Sydal also has some nice submissions in his repertoire, and he pulls a bunch of them out here. Martin also shows some técnico skills, snapping out some tight arm drags in amongst the high altitude offense.
My brother is on a different level man. 🤯 @lucha_angel1 #AEWDark pic.twitter.com/NoGjY17NWT
— Darius Martin (@officialairwolf) June 9, 2021
Honestly, just stop scrolling through my nonsense and go back to watch this match again. This is exactly the sort of clinic that the QT Marshall/Bear Bronson battle was not. Dozens of different moves are pulled out, including some we’ve never seen before. They all land clean, but more importantly they all look like they matter! Near fall! Counter! Near fall! Kick out! Who will win? It could be either of them!
Sydal eventually takes it with the Lightning Spiral. Match of the fucking night. Period.
It was nice to go back to a longer form Dark this week, after the short one last week. I can’t gush about the commentary enough – Taz and Excalibur have me laughing out loud multiple times per episode, which is something I really miss on Dynamite (and Elevation, when I used to watch it). Without a doubt this is my favorite hour (or two) of wrestling each week.
Coming up on the next Friday Night Dynamite keep your eyes peeled for Angélico versus Christian Cage, presumably the main event. Another low card hero will also be in action, as Brandon Cutler teams up with Young Bucks in a trios match versus PAC, Eddie Kingston and Penta el Zero M. Stay tuned for surprises and run-ins, and I’ll update y’all next week. Have fun, wrestlebuds.
