AEW Dark: Elevation Review - August 9, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Red Velvet def. Renee Michelle

I've been saying for weeks that Velvet needed some direction, as she was winning match after match without much purpose. Yes, she's the perfect type of person to be gaining additional experience on the Dark shows, but it'd still be nice if she popped up on Dynamite more often considering she was a focal point in the women's division earlier this year. That said, she finally resurfaced last week to challenge Britt Baker to a match for the AEW Women's World Championship on the Rampage premiere. This was a nice momentum boost for her and was wisely kept short and sweet.

Shawn Dean def. "Pretty" Peter Avalon

Dean has primarily been positioned as an enhancement talent for AEW over the last year. He's excelled in the role, but now that he's been signed to a full-time deal, he needs to start stacking up some wins. Well, this was a good start. Avalon can bump around very well and he's more notable than most of the other jobbers AEW uses, so this was a quality win for Dean. I was surprised it was so short, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Hikaru Shida def. Tesha Price

Shida still has yet to appear on Dynamite since losing the title almost three months ago. She's had a regular presence on the Dark shows, but it's bizarre we haven't seen or heard from her on Dynamite whatsoever. She's been working with a lot of the up-and-coming girls, which has been cool to see. That said, this was too short to be anything out of the ordinary. I actually wouldn't have minded seeing this go a few minutes longer.

Joey Janela Attacked Sonny Kiss

Janela and Kiss were scheduled to be in tag team action against a team whose names I didn't catch (I believe one of them was Baron Black?) before Janela attacked Kiss during their entrance, cementing his heel turn in the process. Obviously, anyone who has been watching the Dark shows for the last five months saw this coming from a mile away, but at least it finally happened and got the reaction it should have. Is it a storyline I care about? Absolutely not, but it's a fine undercard story for the Dark shows if it's going to play out there. Personally, Janela does nothing for me, but maybe he'll fare better as a heel.

Brian Cage def. RSP

This marked Cage's first match since losing the FTW Championship to Ricky Starks where he was betrayed by Powerhouse Hobbs. I guess that makes Cage officially a face now? He certainly came off like one here. We've seen RSP in action on AEW programming in the past and he was impressive, but he didn't have much of a chance to get any offense in here. Rather, this was a dominant showing for Cage.

Jade Cargill def. Amber Nova

Prior to this, Cargill had wrestled since early June. It didn't feel like it'd been two months because she's appeared on AEW programming in some form or fashion since then, but it was about time she stepped back in the ring. She's been slowly putting all the pieces together and has looked good in the handful of matches she's had so far. This over in under a minute, so I'm curious what she can do when her matches start to get more competitive.

Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus) def. Carlie Bravo and Cyrus

Of all the matches on this show, I wasn't expecting this one to be over so quickly. Then again, Jurassic Express were known to have the occasional quick squash on Dark months ago, so I suppose I should have seen this coming. Again, though, I wasn't disappointed whatsoever by its brevity. Short and sweet was exactly what it needed to be. I don't think they'll be going for the AEW World Tag Team Championship any time soon with Jungle Boy currently doing his thing in the singles ranks.

The Lucha Brothers def. Matt and Mike Sydal

Needless to say, this match got more time than anything else on the show, as it should have. The Lucha Brothers are always a delight to watch perform while the Sydal brothers are talented in their own right. I still don't care about Mike Sydal, but as a team, he and Matt work well together and thus this was a fun match. They went all out for eight minutes and the crowd enjoyed every second. This was a great way to close out the show.

Overall Show

The main event was the only true competitive match on this edition of Dark: Elevation. Someone may look at that and think that this was a pointless show as a result, but as I've said time and time again, I prefer the matches to be shorter and for there not to be many matchups on the card. That was the case with this episode, which was over in almost 45 minutes. Combine that with an entertaining main event and you have yourself a thumbs-up show.

SEE MORE: Dark: Elevation Reviews