How ’bout that heat, eh? It ain’t a proper British Columbia summer till you sat through temperatures that’d have Arizona elbowing past Sonora to cool off in the gulf. Down in piddling “Two Digits” Florida, AEW filmed another Dark. Here’s your breezy recap of the June 29 episode.
Last time on Dark…
AEW scraped the barrel of squash to come up with a show. Chandler Hopkins continued to impress. Griff Garrison faced Marko Stunt in a vlog battle. Serpentico jobbed expertly. Catch up in our in our June 22 recap.
Elsewhere in the AEW Arcadia…
Last week’s Dynamite recap isn’t up yet on the Steel Ring Post, but my take is positive! Kenny Omega versus Jungle Boy was every bit as good as you would expect from those two. Matt Sydal and Dante Martin put together an encore performance of their barn burner from a few weeks back. It wasn’t quite as slick as the Dark outing, but it wasn’t bad. Powerhouse Hobbs also had a great match with Adam Page. You guys. Check out this slam.
Damn @TrueWillieHobbs!!! #AEWDynamite pic.twitter.com/PIoq8NqLXr
— Florida Wrestling Fan (@FLWrestlingFan) June 27, 2021
Being The Elite episode 262 featured a rambling Dark Order bit for half the episode. The Hardy Family Office bit was a smarter use of the time – Isiah Kassidy spends just a little too long futzing with Matt Hardy’s durag only to set up the punchline of Marc Quen walking in with his Zamunda-lookin’ headdress to rule them all. Kudos on everyone keeping a straight face.
We’re about to drop the HOTTEST album of the summer 🔥😤‼️
What should the album name be 🤔#TwoWatchZay #HFO pic.twitter.com/6nisneiJoM
— Private Party (@IsiahKassidy) June 28, 2021
Cody Rhodes appeared on Sammy Guevara’s vlog episode 326 to cut a promo hyping up our favorite Dark talents Fuego del Sol, Baron Black and KiLynn King, who don’t have formal AEW contracts and may be left behind when AEW leaves its pandemic base in Jacksonville. There was also a faceoff between the vlog gang and the BTE gang, which was insider-y as all get out, but fun if you watch both shows.
Time to cue up episode 95.
Dim the lights, it’s time for Dark.
BOTCH: Not Wardlow’s world
Walking down the tunnel, it’s WARDLOW! Waiting in the ring to be killed: Baron Black. Hopefully this won’t be one of Dark’s trademark opening squashes.
Wardlow tosses Black to the ground a few times, uppercut, hammer throw. The Head Technician In Charge is doing everything he can to make something of this match, but Wardlow no-sells a double-knees forehead-breaker, then hits his finisher and we’re done. Meh.
POP: Técnico party
Next up is “Big Shotty” Lee Johnson versus Vary Morales, the Mexican metaler.
Johnson and Morales have a clean, técnico opening exchange, then shake hands to show off just how facetacular they are. But then Morales plants a surprise kick square in Johnson’s mug. He hits a couple more drop kicks and then the Two Amigos and a Falcon Arrow!
Lee Johnson kicks out of the Falcon Arrow. Johnson comes back with panache, but Morales gets him outside and hits a flying crossbody. It’s a short-lived comeback, though, as Johnson unloads a painful-looking Ushigoroshi for the win.
This was exactly the kind of technical showcase that would normally get my esteemed match of the night award, but we’re only two matches in! Could they have blown their load this early?
BOTCH: Abadon and on and on
Abadon crawls into the ring to dirty things up a bit. She is facing Hyan, a debuting wrestler out of Texas.
Abadon hits her usual sequence on Hyan. The match ends somewhat abruptly, after Hyan shoots for a crossbody and then just flops in the middle of the ring. Not sure if it was a botch or Abadon’s supernatural powers, but it didn’t really flow.
Abadon wins.
POP: Hobbsy goodness
In our David and Goliath matchup of the night: Marko Stunt versus Powerhouse Hobbs. Please don’t die! Please don’t die!
Stunt tries to quickly sneak through Hobbs’ legs, but Hobbs catches him. Marko hits a chop and a couple of dropkicks, but Hobbs interrupts his Sliced Bread attempt and hits the Town Bidness. That’s it. That’s the match. Short. Sweet. Hobbsy.
POP: Murderhawk Monster tries something new
Speaking of short matches, here comes Lance Archer. Who will he crush this week? Debuting Kenny Bengal!
Bengal takes one look at Archer, removes his coat, then retreats back up the tunnel. It’s a cute variation on Archer’s “carry the already-beaten opponent into the ring” gimmick, because it sets up some backstory for him to… carry his already-beaten opponent into the ring.
Archer throws Bengal into the ring, the match starts, and then the match ends. Bengal does attempt a couple of moves, but they all fail. Still, the guy has some charisma. I don’t know if it was Bengal’s selling and facial expressions, or just the novel setup, but this is easily amongst my top Archer squashes.
FINE: Just fine
Tay Conti is also in action tonight, taking on Charlette Renegade. I didn’t notice it the last time we saw Charlette, but it turns out she is the sister of Robyn Renegade who has shown up a few times on Dark and in Sammy Guevara’s vlog.
The elder Renegade puts up a decent fight. Her moves aren’t quite there yet, but she shows some promise. Conti cycles through her greatest hits and takes the win with a DDTai.
POP: Shut up Pythagoras
Next up we have some Factory action! QT Marshall and Aaron Solow are taking on two alumni from Dustin Rhodes’ new wrestling academy: Chad Lennex and Zachariah.
It feels like a bit of a dick move for a wrestling trainer and his indie vet tagmate to take on two guys fresh out of wrestling school, but that tracks with QT’s current gimmick.
Solow could probably take both of the youngsters on his own, and he does, besting Zachariah and eventually taking Lennex over to the corner to tag QT. Lennex get a couple of stylish moves in, but QT dominates, then hands him back to Solow.
As the mayhem continues in the ring, Excalibur tries to teach us wrestling fans some geometry, then realizes it’s a lost cause. While Taz is still trying to figure out which side is the hypotenuse, The Factory wipe out the Rhodes alumni.
BOTCH: Much too serious
Time for some fun. The Wingmen are all dressed up and ready to go. JD Drake will be eating the pin for the smartly dressed gents this week. Because he’s facing what’s likely to be Kenny Omega’s next big challenger, “The Elite Hunter” Frankie Kazarian.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much from Angry Kaz and the Wingmen’s straight man. Kaz and Drake have a Very Serious exchange to start. Pretty Peter Avalon and Cezar Bononi try to get involved, but ref Mike Posey immediately ejects them. Drake gets a single cheapshot in, but then it’s back to big, manly men beating on each other.
It’s a little tedious, to be honest.
Something cool might have happened, but if it did I missed it. After recovering my accidentally-closed browser window, Drake is in a Crossface Chicken Wing submission. Kaz wins.
OKAY: Coming into a storyline halfway through
Hey, it’s Angélico! He dances obnoxiously into the ring. Already standing in the jobber corner: Arjun Singh.
Singh does an alright job going toe-to-toe with Angélico with submissions and holds. Singh’s ring gear features a pair of trousers that look a bit like Hammer pants, which gives a graceful vibe to everything he does, even when it’s a bit rough. He connects with a few stiff hits, but Angélico comes back with a Navarro Death Roll and it’s done.
.@MATTHARDYBRAND lets @jorajohl know time is ticking and his offer won't last forever. Will @jorajohl accept Big Money Matt's offer?
Watch #AEWDark now – https://t.co/dftUi4u2Pp pic.twitter.com/Yxs1vsBh89
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) June 29, 2021
It seems this match is just a setup for a Matt Hardy bit. Apparently on Elevation a couple weeks back, Hardy fought Jora Johl (aka Robo) and made him an offer to join the Hardy Family Office. This week Johl is in the crowd and Hardy reiterates the offer. This would probably have landed a lot better if I knew who he was.
BOTCH: No time for Holidead
Vickie Guerrero is here! Hope you remembered your earplugs. Nyla Rose has drawn indie star and Thunder Rosa’s former tag team partner Holidead.
Rose pretty much kills Holidead dead.
The highlight of this match was Taz singing along to the entrance music.
POP: The Sonny and Joey show continues
We got some more Hardy Family Office! This time The Blade is in action, and he’s accompanied by The Bunny and TH2. His opponent, Sonny Kiss, has nobody.
Kiss is in bold bright yellow and checkerboard gear that reminds me a New York City taxi cab. The new gear gives him a spurt of good luck, as he recovers from Blade’s initial drubbing to hit a flurry of offensive maneuvers. He’s a victim of the numbers game, though, as The Bunny and TH2 run distraction to help Blade come back.
The match has a lot more back and forth than you’d expect, but then it’s a powerslam, power bomb and Blade has his win.
.@alexmarvez once again tries to get an update from @JANELABABY on #AEWDark
Watch #AEW Dark now – https://t.co/dftUi4LDGX pic.twitter.com/BtTsrjSzLB
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) June 29, 2021
After the bell everyone lays into Kiss, who is saved by Best Friends. Joey Janela runs in way too late to try take the credit, but Kiss isn’t buying it. I love the storyline between these two. It hits all the melodramatic beats of a fraying friendship without having to pull out some contrived big event that busted it all up.
POP: The future looks bright
J-U-L-I-A! Julia Hart is here to fight Ashley D’Amboise.
D’Amboise comes in with some big, strong American wrestling moves. Hart, on the other hand, punctuates all of her unremarkable moves with a bevy of cute, cheerful flourishes. Neither of these competitors are great wrestlers yet, but they’re doing an admirable job of dressing up what they’ve got, and that counts for a lot. The rest will come with time.
Hart swipes Sonny Kiss’ splitting leg drop finisher for the win.
POP: Dark Order doing what they do best – trios
Trios Jones, baby! We got some Dark Order versus some Hardy Family Office. Straight outta Montréal (well, mostly), we have Stu Grayson, Evil Uno and Colt Cabana. On the Hardy side: Jack Evans and Private Party.
Cabana and Evans to open. It’s beautiful to watch a couple of veterans go – every move fits perfectly into the next one. Cabana comes out on top after bringing in his buddies. Evans tags Marc Quen who flies most of the way across the ring and lands on Grayson. Some dirty shenanigans get Grayson even more worn down. Hey, the ref is Bryce Remsburg, when that guy’s in the ring the heels can get away with anything!
Somehow Grayson makes it through the extended beating, hitting Uno for the hot tag. Uno dispatches both of Private Party, then neckbreaks Jack Evans and it’s the three-way Dark Order finishing sequence… But Marc Quen interrupts the pin!
It almost looks like the HFO are going to come back, but some quick thinking sets Jack Evans back up to eat the Chicago Skyline and pin. Great fun.
POP: Surprise bonus elbow
Excalibur sold the last match like it was the main event, even closing it by saying he’ll see us all Wednesday at Dynamite… But then, weirdly, we get another match. It’s “The Captain” Shawn Dean versus the debuting JDX. If the producers shuffled around the running order that blatantly, this should be one hell of a match.
10 mins until #AEWDark letssss…. pic.twitter.com/Nb5Q7KxsRu
— Capt. Shawn Dean (@ShawnDean773) June 29, 2021
Dean and JDX are straight into it, all the hard and fast American wrestling that I was hoping to get from Frankie Kazarian earlier in the night but didn’t quite land. We get punches, chops, clotheslines and slams. It’s bangin’.
The Cap hits a neckbreaker, dropkick, body slam combination to take control, then hit’s a People’s Elbow, with a quick salute in the middle. Nice! He wins with an overly complicated submission called the Margarita, and it is cool.
BOTCH: With a whimper
I mean, what is this. Another nother main event? We have a Wingmen party! This time both Cezar Bononi and Ryan Nemeth are in, so it should be more entertaining than JD Drake’s outing. They’re facing Dark regulars Jake St Patrick and Sage Scott.
Nemeth is bright orange. His unusual complexion distracts St Patrick, who gets beaten down by both Nemeth and Bononi. St Patrick jawbreaks Nemeth then escapes to Scott who comes in hard. But the Wingmen double team, ref Frank Gastineau loses control and… well, the Wingmen win it.
Perhaps I was expecting too much after the spectacular Orange Cassidy/Cezar Bononi match from Dynamite a few weeks back, but this wasn’t it.
Also, the stream cut out at the end, without so much as a goodbye from our commentators. I guess by the time you read this the production team will do some stealth reuploading to ensure the matches are aired in the expected order?
This was a surprisingly fun episode of Dark. I didn’t expect this much show, given they were taping Elevation and had Dynamite the same day, but we got a nice selection of matches. That Lee Johnson/Vary Morales fight was great. AEW could put together a fantastic cruiserweight/high flyer division if they were so inclined. Dustin Rhodes’ new trainees didn’t look too bad either, nor did JDX or Singh. Plus we got more storyline for the signed talents. More please.
Coming up on Dynamite they’re doing a goodbye/thankyou show for the Daily’s Place fans who kept it going through the pandemic. I hope that leads to some Darks and Elevations that highlight the corona era local jobbers who have become mini stars in their own right. On the TV show we’ll be getting Jungle Boy versus Jack Evans, Miro versus Brian Pillman Jr and a bunch of main roster stuff that should be a joy. Enjoy the graps and join me back here next week for my one year of writing for Steel Ring Post anniversary!
