AEW Dark: Elevation Review - January 2, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Hikaru Shida def. Tyra Russamee

Shida and Jamie Hayter killed it in their match for the AEW Women's World Championship last month. Despite the strong showing, I assume Shida will be back to pulling Dark duty for the foreseeable future. That's a shame. This was your average Shida squash and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Her matches have a nice energy to them and she always hits hard. This was a spirited squash while it lasted.

Varsity Athletes def. Pillars of Destiny

As I've said before, Tony Nese and Josh Woods work well as partners and a perfectly fine team, but they've been established as an enhancement team thus far on AEW TV and it's impossible to care about them as a duo. Having Mark Sterling as their manager doesn't help, either. This was a fairly standard showcase for them, though it feels pointless if it isn't leading to anything.

The Firm (Matt Hardy and Isiah Kassidy) def. Manny Lemons and Atiba

It was recently revealed that Marq Quen is currently injured, hence why Hardy and Kassidy have been teaming up a lot lately. They're technically representing The Firm. For as much as they hate having to answer to Ethan Page, that hasn't stopped them frmo racking up wins for the past few weeks. This was more of the same from them and it's nice to see at least one-half of Private Party winning matches for a change.

Marina Shafir def. Lilith Grimm

I'll be the first to criticize Shafir for not being very good, but to her credit, this wasn't terrible at all. In fact, it was quite serviceable and I was glad she kept it short and sweet. Of course, we've seen some short matches from Shafir that were rough, but this was not one of them. She picked apart her opponent and won with one of her signature submissions. It's wild that we see more of Shafir on the Dark shows than most of the other women in AEW, but I assume that's because she's the one who needs more development.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena def. Gypsy Mac (Non-Title)

If you've seen any of Athena's matches, you've essentially seen them all because a majority of them have been squashes on Dark. I'm not complaining, though, because this new aggressive edge from Athena has been awesome. Her matches always stand out and this was no exception as she beat the crap out of Mac and laid her out afterward as well. It's unfortunate that Athena will likely continue to be relegated to the Dark shows until ROH TV gets going soon.

The Dark Order (Evil Uno, John Silver and Alex Reynolds) def. Ryan Nemeth and Chaos Project

Dark Order are down to three members, which makes sense so they can compete in the trios division. They're an undercard act well past their expiration date, but despite that, they're still very over with most crowds. That was certainly the case here as well. This was a sprint of a squash that didn't have a dull moment. Did we ever get anyone from Dark Order ever face Preston Vance/Perro Peligroso to get revenge for him betraying them? It feels like that feud was abruptly dropped.

Julia Hart def. Leva Bates

Hart is similar to Shafir in that her matches do absolutely nothing for me personally, but the Dark shows are where she belongs (at least as far as her matches go) for the time being. She's improving, and I appreciate that she defeated someone on the actual roster for once, but Bates wasn't the best opponent for her to be in the ring with. The best thing I can say about this match was that it was over within a minute.

Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett def. Justin Andrews and RYZIN

Lethal and Jarrett are set to challenge The Acclaimed for the AEW World Tag Team Championship, so it made sense to give them a dominant win before then. I still find it ridiculous that Jarrett is wrestling regularly for a major promotion in 2022, but in all honesty, he hasn't looked bad at all. Lethal is being featured on AEW TV consistently, so it's not all awful. This was what you'd expect it to be.

House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King and Buddy Matthews) def. Hagane Shinno, Rosario Grillo and Dean Alexander

I know they've appeared a handful of times since returning on the Thanksgiving week edition of Dynamite, but House of Black really should be on AEW TV more. They're basically building up wins so they can eventually face whoever wins the Best-of-7 Series for the AEW World Trios Championship. Eddie Kingston and/or Ortiz may not have been able to make this past week's television tapings, so that might be why there wasn't any progression on Dynamite or Rampage. Nonetheless, seeing them take their time kill these three dudes was a treat.

Overall Show

Was it necessary to shoehorn nine matches into one show? It ran almost an hour, but they could have shortened it by trimming out at least two (if not three) of the matches. All in all, this was an average edition of Elevation. No titles were defended and none of the matches stood out in a major way, but nothing was too bad, either. This show would have benefited from having at least one slightly competitive match instead of nine straight squashes.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews