AEW Dark: Elevation Review - March 21, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Nyla Rose def. Charlette Renegade

I wrote in a recent review that it was a blessing that we haven't heard much from Vickie Guerrero lately, but I clearly spoke too soon because this show started with her screaming on the mic while walking out of the tunnel. Ugh. Vickie was also holding a doll of some sort at ringside, reminiscent of whatever gimmick Kharma/Awesome Kong was going for during her brief stint in WWE over a decade ago. We'll see if that sticks. This was a standard squash for Rose otherwise.

Julia Hart def. Skye Blue

It didn't dawn on me until Hart made her entrance that she hasn't been in action on either of the Dark shows in a while. I looked it up and apparently she hasn't wrestled since early February. I'm not sure if she's been hurt or if AEW just didn't use her. Either way, she's still wearing the stupid eyepatch and has an aggressive attitude. She actually cheated to beat Blue by putting her feet on the bottom rope when the referee wasn't looking. This was passable, but both ladies are inexperienced, so I wasn't surprised by the subpar quality.

Gunn Club (Austin and Colten Gunn) def. Aaron Mercer and Masada

We were seeing quite a bit of Gunn Club on the Dark shows for a good stretch of time but not nearly as much in recent weeks. I assume that's because AEW wanted to build up their win-loss record before unsuccessfully challenging Jurassic Express for the AEW World Tag Team Championship on Rampage. This was simply a chance for them to showcase their skills and win in a matter of minutes. I appreciate that they're a little less obnoxious than they were previously.

Top Flight def. Chaos Project

I believe someone from Top Flight mentioned on Twitter before this bout that one of their last matches before Darius Martin got hurt was against Chaos Project, so I liked that attention to detail. As I've made quite clear in pretty much every review I've written about them in, Chaos Project do nothing for me, but their sole purpose in this match was to put over Top Flight and I thought they did a decent job of that. Darius is looking better and better with each outing, which is encouraging to see.

Ruby Soho and Anna Jay def. The Bunny and Emi Sakura

Soho may as well be considered the queen of the Dark shows and Jay wouldn't be far behind. I mean, when was the last time either of them had an important match on Dynamite or Rampage? I'm fine with Bunny and Sakura playing the gatekeeper role, but Soho and Jay should be doing more than the average enhancement match on Elevation, especially given all the momentum and fanfare Soho had when she debuted in AEW six months ago. This was a perfectly fine match to give the babyfaces a win over two contracted talent. It's better than them beating two nobodies.

Lance Archer Addressed the Audience and Attacked a Fan

This episode emanated from Texas, which is the home state of Archer. However, he quickly turned the crowd against him at the beginning of his promo. The weird thing is he was being managed by both Jake Roberts and Dan Lambert when he was challenging for the AEW World Championship earlier this year, but Lambert has since ditched Archer and I don't know when we last saw Roberts on AEW TV, so Archer had to cut his own promo. He's actually a talented talker, but it's almost impossible to take him seriously because he's been booked like a stepping stone. This was a simple segment and it was refreshing to have something other than a match on this show for a change.

The Dark Order (John Silver, Evil Uno and Stu Grayson) def. The Factory (QT Marshall, Aaron Solo and Nick Comoroto)

The Factory are some of the biggest losers in AEW from a booking standpoint, but unlike Chaos Project, at least they're not unbearably annoying. They're actually mostly serviceable in the ring and I've talked before about how Marshall elevates others exceptionally well. From an in-ring standpoint, this was a rock solid main event, especially once they picked up the pace down the stretch. The crowds sure do love themselves some John Silver, who was rightfully spotlighted at the end.

Overall Show

There was plenty of quality wrestling on this show, even though a majority of them were squashes. The main event was easily the best bout on the show, though nothing you need to go out of your way to see. s previously mentioned, it was cool that they included a talking segment with Archer, something we haven't seen much on this show since the days of The Waiting Room with Britt Baker. This was your average edition of Elevation in that it was what it needed to be.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews