AEW Dark: Elevation Review - August 15, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Tony Nese and Josh Woods def. Travis Titan and Arik Cannon

Nese and Woods just fell short against Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland in a non-title Street Fight two weeks ago on Rampage. That's pretty much the ceiling of the tag team division, so I'm not sure what they strive for now unless they set their sights on FTR's ROH World Tag Team Championship soon. Ring of Honor is where this team would be best suited in the long run, anyway. This was a fine rebound win for them.

The Dark Order (John Silver, Alex Reynolds, Evil Uno and Preston "10" Vance) def. T.U.G. Cooper, Drew System, Rylie Jackson and Adam Grace

We haven't seen all of Dark Order (or at least what's left of it) in action together in quite a while. Since they'll be taking part in the AEW World Trios Championship Tournament, it's smart to give them a few wins to make them look like actual threats. They were in business mode here and didn't waste any time putting their opponents away. Dark Order is a shell of what it once was, but maybe their alliance with Adam Page will ultimately do them some good.

Serena Deeb def. Sierra

Deeb is back to doing nothing after failing to win the AEW Women's World Championship at Double or Nothing and then the ROH Women's World Championship at Death Before Dishonor. Perhaps she'll have better luck contending for the AEW TBS Championship after Jade Cargill loses it? Nonetheless, this was a solid showcase for Deeb to remind viewers what she's capable of.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Cezar Bononi

I thought Takeshita's ROH World Championship match with Claudio Castagnoli at Battle of the Belts III would be his last in AEW since he announced over the weekend his U.S. excursion is officially over (for now), but apparently they were able to film one more match with him at last week's tapings before he took off. Bononi getting so much offense over Takeshita wasn't exactly ideal, but it's somewhat understandable because Bononi is a bigger dude. Takeshita won and that's all that matters. Hopefully it isn't long before we see him back in an AEW ring.

Julia Hart def. Kara

Hart is still very much a work in progress in the ring, and although I don't care all that much about her joining House of Black, this character of hers has actually helped keep her limited in the ring. Of course, she'll only improve with more matches, but it's smart to not put her in matches that are longer than a minute or two for now. This was more of the same from her and that isn't a complaint.

Private Party def. Jah-C and JDX

It was announced last week that Private Party will challenge Swerve In Our Glory for the AEW World Tag Team Championship on Friday's Rampage. Why? I have no idea since Private Party have done absolutely nothing to deserve it, and that's coming from someone who is a fan of theirs. They needed a win before then and that was why this existed. This was a nice match, but I maintain they'd be better off back as babyfaces.

Penelope Ford def. Heather Reckless

Ford had been out injured since January. I honestly forgot she was still on the roster. With Kip Sabian on his way back soon, could we see them reunite on television? Ford likely has a brighter future on her own than Sabian does, so that'd probably benefit Sabian more than it would Ford. Nonetheless, I'm glad Ford is back. This was a fairly basic bout, but at least she didn't show much ring rust.

The Acclaimed def. Justin Fowler and JT Energy

Now that they've seemingly wrapped up their rivalry with Gunn Club, The Acclaimed should be moved into the AEW World Tag Team Championship picture. They're very over with the audience right now and a match pitting them against Swerve In Our Glory makes sense to me. This was a quick showcase for them to keep their winning ways alive. It was exactly what it needed to be at around 90 seconds long.

AEW Women's World Champion Thunder Rosa, Toni Storm and Hikaru Shida def. Marina Shafir, Nyla Rose and Emi Sakura

Having a match on Dark or Elevation isn't inherently a negative thing, but it's pretty ridiculous that the entrances for this lasted long than the match itself. They could have cut out one or two of the other matches and given this a few more minutes. Rosa and Storm are in the midst of a storyline over the AEW Women's World Championship, so why wouldn't that receive more focus? Hell, Rosa didn't even tag in. At under three minutes, this was basically throwaway.

Overall Show

I was happy to see the show run only for 40 minutes, but there was one or two matches too many. Trying to squeeze nine matches in such a short time span isn't the best call, especially since some of them weren't important and the episode could have done without them. That said, this was your average edition of Dark. Nothing too bad, nothing too great. It would've been nice if the main event got more time considering the star power involved.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews