AEW Dark: Elevation Review - July 4, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Anna Jay def. Megan Meyers

Jay was accompanied to the ring by -1, who we haven't seen on AEW programming in quite a while if my memory serves me correctly. This was a fairly average outing with Jay hitting her spots and winning with ease almost immediately. It was no different than any of her other matches, but at least she's racking up wins. By the way, now that Tay Conti isn't doing anything notable, can we finally get some follow-up on the friendship between her and Jay? They haven't interacted on TV at all since Conti turned heel and the lack of explanation has been very lazy.

Best Friends def. Isaiah Broner and GPA

We've all been wondering what the hell happened to Best Friends since pretty much everyone in the faction went on to do something new other than Chuck Taylor and it was starting to look like he was going to phased out of the company. Well, with the Forbidden Door stuff now over, Best Friends can return to teaming. This crowd was happy to see them back and the match was a solid showcase for them.

Jay Lethal and Satnam Singh def. James Alexander and Ren Jones

Lethal and Singh have barely been in action in recent months, and that includes the Dark shows. Giving Singh more reps would be wise since he's still so green and he won't improve if he's not wrestling. Also, their rivalry with Samoa Joe has felt like it's lasted forever, but I assume that's because they're holding off until Ring of Honor's Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view in a few weeks to do Lethal vs. Joe for the ROH World Television Championship. This was a pretty standard squash for the heel duo with Singh being kept limited and doing well for as long as he was in there.

Anthony Ogogo def. Pat Monix

Nothing screams Fourth of July more than an Englishman in action. I kid, I kid. The crowd getting behind Moxix was random, and it wasn't as if they knew who he was because they chanted "Let's go jobber!" Do they really hate Ogogo that much or did they simply want to entertain themselves? I assume the latter since Ogogo hasn't been on AEW TV in over a year at this point and most people probably don't remember he's still on the roster. This was another decisive knockout win for Ogogo.

Hikaru Shida and Yuka Sakazaki def. Heather Reckless and Laynie Luck

This marked Shida's first match in AEW in a few months. She was taken out of the women's Owen Hart Cup due to a storyline injury, so it will be interesting to see if that leads to anything between her and Britt Baker (who wound up winning the whole thing). Reckless and Luck attacking Shida and Sakazaki before the bell was a nice twist and allowed them to score more offense than they likely would have otherwise, though it wasn't long before the babyfaces battled back and picked up the victory.

The Dark Order (Preston "10" Vance, Alex Reynolds and Evil Uno) def. The Factory (QT Marshall, Aaron Solo and Nick Comoroto)

The heels attacked the babyfaces before the bell here as well. If they were going to do it in the match right before this, then they shouldn't have done it in this match. Nonetheless, this was basically every Dark Order vs. Factory matchup you've ever seen. There's nothing exciting about their chemistry, but the matches are well wrestled, if nothing else. It helped that they picked up the pace a bit down the stretch. Dark Order may be down a member with Alan Angels leaving the company last week, but at least they were able to win here.

Overall Show

At only 36 minutes long, this was a perfectly serviceable edition of Elevation, especially with it falling on a holiday. I can't say the main event did much for me, but all in all, the wrestling was adequate and several stars were showcased. Plus, we got the return of Hikaru Shida and Best Friends in action, so that was somewhat notable. This episode flew by for me and nothing stood out as being bad, so I have no complaints. 

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews