AEW Dark: Elevation Review - November 22, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Tay Conti and Anna Jay def. Willow Nightingale and Erica Leigh

If AEW ever introduces tag team titles for the women (and hopefully that won't be for a while, especially since the AEW TBS Women's Championship is coming soon), Tay Jay should be the first people to hold the belts. They work so well together and are always fun to watch. I'm not familiar with Leigh, but Nightingale has been making the rounds this year between AEW, Ring of Honor and MLW. This was short and sweet, but it was cool to see Nightingale in there.

Tony Nese def. Logan Laroux

This was only Nese's second match in AEW and his first in front of a full crowd (his debut took place at Universal Studios if I remember correctly). He's a good hand to have for the Dark shows, but I don't see him having any sort of regular role on Rampage or Dynamite with how loaded AEW's roster is at the moment. The Virginia native Laroux scored some offense but Nese went over in the end as he should have.

Team Taz (Powerhose Hobbs and Ricky Starks) def. Lucas Chase and Irvin Legend

I know a lot of people have speculated that Starks hasn't wrestled a lot lately on AEW TV because his neck might still be injured from earlier this year, but I don't know if I believe that since he's had a handful of matches on Dark and has wrestled in these tag team matches with Hobbs. Can we please get Team Taz back in a meaningful program? They completely dominated their opponents here and won in a matter of minutes.

Kris Statlander, "Legit" Leyla Hirsch and Ryo Mizunami def. The Bunny, Penelope Ford and Emi Sakura

I feel like it's been a while since we last saw Hirsch in action. I don't know why she was gone, but I'm glad she's back. That said, I'm so over these multi-woman matches on the Dark shows. We see at least one a week, and although I'm aware everyone is ring there at one point or another, it feels like a lazy way to include everyone on the show. Singles matches would be smarter in my opinion. Props to The Bunny for taking Statlander's finisher a million times this year.

Frankie Kazarian def. Joe Keys

As previously noted, I get the sense that Kazarian's Elite Hunter gimmick is officially dead and he's back to being himself, which is a positive. I've also mentioned before that Keys has been with ROH forever as part of the ROH Dojo, but he must not be any sort of deal to them considering how many appearances he's made for AEW this year. He's decent in the ring from what I've seen, but nothing stands out as special about him. This gave Kazarian a necessary singles win.

The Dark Order (John Silver, Alex Reynolds and Preston "10" Vance) def. Baron Black, Duke Davis and Ganon Jones

This was basically any Dark Order multi-man match you've ever seen with each member taking turns showcasing their offense and getting their time to shine. Mark Henry asking on commentary if they're models because they pose so much made me laugh. I'm glad he, Paul Wight and Jim Ross call the wrestlers out whenever they do something dumb or illogical. This probably could have been a few minutes shorter, but it served its purpose.

Riho def. Trish Adora

Adora also appeared on today's edition of Ring of Honor TV. She's impressed me since I first saw her in ROH and hope we'll see more of her somewhere with ROH closing its doors soon. I was looking forward to the showing she'd have here, but this was pretty one-sided in favor of Riho and ended in around two minutes. That's not too surprising since AEW is clearly trying to re-establish Riho by building her back up with wins.

Wheeler Yuta def. Serpentico

This was a weird match to go with in the main event slot. Both guys are under some sort of a deal to AEW (I don't remember seeing an "all elite" graphic for either of them), but they're also not big stars by any stretch. This would have been better off in the undercard, but that star power wasn't present on this episode, so this was what we were left with. On the bright side, it was a solid main event, made even better by the lack of Luther at ringside. That dude is unbearable, but Serpentico at least has skills as seen in this match.

Overall Show

Even if none of the matches are worth going out of your way to see, I'll never completely crap on an edition of Elevation that's under an hour long. They've found a formula that works with these shows and it's so much easier to digest as a viewer (specifically for someone like me who tries to watch everything and just doesn't have the time). This was a perfectly average episode and the near-50 minutes flew by.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews