AEW Dark: Elevation Review - March 6, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Nyla Rose and Marina Shafir def. J-Rod and Sandra Moone

It was reported in the past week that Vickie Guerrero is on her way out of AEW, apparently once her contract expires this summer. Interestingly, she was not at ringside with Rose and Shafir here, so I'm curious if she'll be on AEW programming at all until then. I'd be perfectly fine with that because she adds nothing to their act, anyway. This wasn't a bad showcase from them, but it wasn't overly interesting, either.

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Brian Cage def. Rob McKnight

Speaking of contracts, I'm not sure if there's been any update on Cage's status. I assume he'll stick around in AEW/Ring of Honor since I don't know if WWE would actually sign him/use him properly. This was your usual Cage squash where he decimated his opponent and won with ease. He'll win on Elevation but never on Dynamite. I assume he'll be exclusive to ROH now that ROH TV is back up and running. These squashes are pointless if they don't amount to anything.

Juice Robinson def. Titus Alexander

Robinson's only been in AEW for a few months and I'm already over him. He's not bad by any means, but as I've said before, he brings nothing particularly special to the table, either. I don't want to say he was signed solely for the fact that his wife Toni Storm is in AEW, but it's not like Tony Khan has any grand plan for him. Even in ROH, what does he do there other than fill out the roster? Alexander scored more offense than I thought he would, but that didn't make the match any less of a waste of time.

Skye Blue def. Leila Grey

It was nice to see both women get a step up in competition for a change as opposed to beating a local athlete. That said, they're still works in progress, so I feared this would be worse than it was. Thankfully, they kept it short and sweet and had a perfectly competent contest. Of the two, it made more sense for Blue to win since she wrestles on Dynamite and Rampage far more often than Grey.

Christopher Daniels def. Cole Karter

Daniels received a pretty favorable reaction from the crowd in California (which is where he's from). I appreciate any opportunity we get to see Daniels in action since there was a stretch where rarely competed. As for Karter, he's impressive but hasn't gotten past the "generic" stage yet, thought getting him the hell away from The Factory (which has apparently disbanded) is a step in the right direction. This was a nice match and I like that Daniels is working with the young guys.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena def. Brooke Havok in an ROH Women's World Championship Proving Ground Match

Proving Ground matches are basically the ROH equivalent of AEW's Eliminator matches. Havok is definitely better than she was when she first started her wrestling career and faced Britt Baker on Dark a few years ago. She has a way to go, but she's clearly gaining confidence. This was all about Athena and she won fairly quickly once again. Willow Nightingale made the save for Havok afterward ahead of her championship clash with Athena on Thursday's edition of ROH TV.

Lance Archer def. Jack Banning

Archer recently returned on Rampage after being gone from AEW programming since November. He's back to squashing dudes, but I don't think that's going to do much to help him in the long run. He'll still be seen as a stepping stone to me. This was very similar to what we got from Cage earlier in the episode and was what it needed to be. Archer continues to come out acting like a babyface before showing heel tendencies during his matches, so I'm not sure what to make of him.

Evil Uno def. Lee Johnson

After taking Jon Moxley to the limit in a short sprint on Dynamite recently, I appreciate that he went over strong in the main event of this show against someone on the roster. Oddly, Karter was in Johnson's corner (despite The Factory no longer being a thing) and the rest of Dark Order weren't in Uno's corner. This was a definite improvement over the tired Dark Order six-man squashes we've been getting for years. Johnson also played his role well and they had a quality contest in the time they were allotted.

Overall Show

Uno vs. Johnson was hardly a memorable main event, but it was enjoyable for what it was. Everything else was par for the course by Elevation standards. It was light on star power and featured the usual suspects. There isn't anything worth seeking out, so if you're into this sort of stuff, you'll dig the episode. Otherwise, don't bother wasting the time. If nothing else, there wasn't an excessive amount of matches and the 40-minute runtime breezed by.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews