AEW Dark: Elevation Review - December 26, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Nyla Rose and Marina Shafir def. Leva Bates and Karizma

AEW is starting to put together a few different female teams, which makes me worried that we're headed for a women's tag team championship soon. The last thing AEW needs is another title and I don't have enough faith they'd be able to make it worthwhile. Rose and Shafir are a lame team, anyway. This was a standard showcase for them and I'm glad it was on the shorter side. Vickie Guerrero teasing tension with the two of them later on backstage was interesting, though.

Julia Hart def. Promise Braxton

This was basically every Julia Hart match you've ever seen. That isn't to say it was bad, but there was absolutely nothing interesting about it. The only positive is that she's getting more reps by wrestling on Dark, especially after being away from programming for a few months along with the rest of House of Black. Keeping this short and sweet was the right call. I assume she'll primarily be utilized as a manager going forward and barely compete on the main shows.

The Bunny def. Madison Rayne

The Bunny's role at this point is to be built up on the Dark shows so she can lose to more important people on Dynamite and Rampage. Her matches aren't abysmal as they once were, so that's been a plus. It also helped she beat someone of note for a change and not some random local athlete. This was fine, but probably should have been better given the level of experience between the two women.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Frankie Kazarian

What a random banger for the middle of an edition of Elevation. This would have been the perfect main event any other time. Both of these guys can obviously go and therefore it was no surprise they had such an entertaining outing. Takeshita's a star and defeating someone such as Kazarian will only benefit him in the long run. They worked wonderfully together and made the most of the time they had, which unfortunately wasn't much.

Ruby Soho and Willow Nightingale def. Vertvixen and Madi Wrenkowski

We found out last week that Soho and Nightingale will battle Tay Melo and Anna Jay A.S. this week on Dynamite, so it made sense to have them team up before then, establish some chemistry and give them a victory to give them some last-minute momentum. It's an excellent use of both Soho and Nightingale for now and I hope they win on Wednesday. This was a well-worked match and I didn't mind this being slightly competitive.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena def. Kiera Hogan

I appreciated that Athena got a step up in competition for a change and didn't defend against some random no-namer that would've had no chance of winning. Granted, I didn't expect Hogan to win, either, but at least she gave Athena more of a fight than most people. They had a damn good match. This was the most we've seen out of Hogan since she left IMPACT last year. Meanwhile, Athena continues to roll. It's just a shame we'll presumably be seeing a little less of her on AEW TV now that she's ROH Women's World Champion and we wait for ROH TV to get going.

Dralistico def. Blake Christian

For those unaware, Rush has another brother in addition to Dragon Lee, and that's Dralistico. He teamed with Rush at ROH Final Battle and also took part in the trios Casino Royale last Friday on Rampage. He lost both of those bouts, so it was nice to see him on his own and pick up a win. Christian was the perfect opponent for him because he had a chance to shine as well when he was on offense and their styles meshed exceptionally well. This was a very fun main event that gave the audience a small taste of what Dralistico can do.

Overall Show

I was worried when the show started with Rose and Shafir in tag team action, and I also find it difficult to care about Hart's matches, but everything after that held my interest and delivered. The main event was a hell of a sprint and I enjoyed the hell out of Athena vs. Hogan as well as Takeshita vs. Kazarian. Plus, we got a 50-minute runtime with seven matches and that's the perfect formula, so this was a strong episode by Elevation standards.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews