AEW Dark: Elevation Review - October 25, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

"Legit" Leyla Hirsch and Ryo Mizunami def. Diamante and Xtina Kay

Hirsch and Mizunami teamed a handful of times on the Dark shows earlier this year and were starting to hit their stride before Mizunami went back to Japan. Now that she's returned to AEW, it looks like they're going to pick up where they left off. This was an enjoyable opener with Hirsch and Mizunami working well together and Diamante looking good in defeat. Even Kay held her own.

AAA World Tag Team Champions FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood) w/ Tully Blanchard def. Mike Reed and Toa Liona (Non-Title)

I guess the AAA World Tag Team Championship are technically "canon" now as long as AEW wants to acknowledge them, which I assume will at least be until Full Gear when we get FTR vs. The Lucha Brothers, possibly in a Winners Take All match. Liona was really impressive for the time he spent in the ring and I hope we get to see more from him. Reed didn't do much except eat that Big Rig (Shatter Machine) out of nowhere at the end, which was cool.

Emi Sakura def. Reka Tehaka

My hope with Sakura is that she'll be used to help elevate others, and in order to do that, she needs to win a few enhancement matches so it means more when she loses. Tehaka had a significant size advantage over Sakura and scored her fair share of offense. She made the most of her opportunity to stand out here. This was a perfectly serviceable match and was perfect right around the four-minute mark. 

Preston "10" Vance def. QT Marshall

Marshall is so hated by the audience that his babyface opponents actually benefit from him. He's also been on AEW programming quite a bit this year, so he definitely has more credibility now than he did a year ago when he was still teaming with Dustin Rhodes. Props to Marshall for working most of the match with that ugly swelling under his eye. His vision had to be impaired in that eye because it blew up quick. The Factory interfered multiple times, so once The Dark Order leveled the playing field, Vance was able to pick up the victory.

Paul Wight def. Carlie Bravo, Cole Karter and Arjun Singh in a 3-on-1 Handicap Match

Wight has been booked pretty perfectly so far. I'm well aware he hasn't done much of anything so far, but that's exactly my point. He's largely been limited to commentary (a role he excels at), he had one quick squash against Marshall at All Out, and he's had two matches on Elevation in the past month to keep him active. Despite the odds being stacked against him, he made short work of his unknown opponents by dominating them in under three minutes. You can't ask for much more than that.

Overall Show

AEW has finally found a formula that works for them in regards to keeping Elevation under 60 minutes. Any episode that runs between 20 and 40 minutes automatically gets a thumbs up from me and this was no exception. Better yet, everything was what it needed to be or more. The squashes were short and sweet while the more competitive matches were fun while they lasted. This was an extremely easy watch.

SEE MORE: Elevation Reviews