AEW Dark: Elevation Review - May 16, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Bear Bronson def. Brandon Cutler

We've been seeing Cutler in action on the Dark shows a lot more lately, at least compared to the last few months. I don't care much for him myself, but there's no doubt he's been playing his role well as The Elite's stooge. This match actually came together on Being The Elite this week, so I liked that there was a little bit of a story behind this. Despite being a tag team guy, Bronson winning in decisive fashion was the right call.

Brody King def. Alex Reynolds

It felt like it had been a while since I last saw King wrestle on his own, so I looked it up and apparently this marked his singles debut in AEW. He's only had tag team matches, and not many of them at that. King is extremely talented, so hopefully we see more of him in singles competition going forward, even if it's on Elevation. This was over in under two minutes and I'm not complaining. This had to be a squash.

Yuka Sakazaki and Anna Jay def. Emi Sakura and Nyla Rose

Sakazaki just recently fell short of qualifying for the women's Owen Hart Cup against Riho. I'm curious if she's here to stay in AEW or this will be another short stint from her. Meanwhile, Jay joked on Twitter about having yet another new tag team partner this week. Will the apparent end of her alliance with Tay Conti ever be addressed on one of the shows? Nonetheless, this was solid stuff. If Sakura continues to lose, it makes you wonder why Rose continues to team with her.

Gunn Club (Colten and Austin Gunn) and The Acclaimed def. Zack Clayton, Bryce Donovan, GKM and Lucas Chase

Gunn Club and The Acclaimed have formed an alliance as of late and it looks like it's going to stick. It's well documented that I'm not the biggest Gunn Club fan, but they oddly have strong chemistry with The Acclaimed, so I don't hate it. All four heels had their time to shine and it was over relatively quickly, so no complaints here. Plus, Bowens is back! He'd be out injured since March, so that's a positive development.

The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Preston "10" Vance) def. VSK and Eric James

It looks like Vance will be Uno's new partner moving forward now that Stu Grayson is gone from the company. That's not necessarily a bad thing either because they work well together and they're Dark Order's only masked men at this point, though I think Vance should unmask at some point. This was decent as they picked up the obvious victory, but Dark Order on the whole continue to spin their wheels.

ROH Women's World Champion Mercedes Martinez def. Trish Adora

I know Martinez's title defense with Deonna Purrazzo didn't get over too well with the live crowd on Dynamite two weeks ago, but I hope that doesn't scare AEW from doing more ROH Women's title matches on TV. This was another well wrestled match and it's awesome that Adora had this opportunity considering she was heavily involved in ROH's women's division toward the end. She definitely gained something in defeat. I don't know if we've ever gotten a title match on Elevation before, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Overall Show

The ROH Women's World Championship being defended in the main event made this a more eventful edition of Elevation than usual. It wasn't a barn burner by any means and would have been better with more time, but I'll take that over what we normally get on this show. The rest of the episode was standard stuff, but the 40-minute runtime was appreciated and the six matches breezed by.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews