AEW Dark Review - April 11, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Matt Taven def. Brian Pillman Jr.

This was a pretty cool matchup because I've seen both of these guys (specifically Taven) work the northeast indies plenty of times and it felt like a case where it was the present vs. the future. The problem is that The Kingdom haven't been positioned as anyone important in AEW and Pillman is rarely used nowadays. These two had a quality contest, but with Taven being a tag team guy and Pillman losing, I'm not sure what purpose this was supposed to serve.

Lee Johnson def. Blake Li

I guess Johnson and Cole Karter will be sticking together as partners despite The Factory no longer being a thing, but I can't see them being used as anything other than an enhancement team on the Dark shows despite both guys being skilled. We've seen Li pop up before, but he has yet to do anything that has actually impressed me. In fact, nothing about this match impressed me. It existed solely to exist and that's it.

Josh Woods def. Daisy K

Interestingly, Daisy just popped up recently in the NWA, teaming with a dude named Talos. They actually just wrestled on the NWA 312 pay-per-view pre-show in a losing effort against Trevor Murdoch and Mike Knox. He didn't stand out in any way in this match as it was all about Woods and establishing what he's capable of. Varsity Athletes will never get beyond a certain level, but I wouldn't mind seeing what Woods could do in singles competition if he was afforded the opportunity because he was great during his Ring of Honor run.

Willow Nightingale def. Diamante

Diamante is almost never seen on the main shows, but she makes the most of her Dark appearances by having well-wrestled matches and bringing the best out of her opponents. I was glad this was more of a competitive contest than a straight-up squash as they ended up having a super solid main event. This told me that Diamante deserves more of a spotlight and Nightingale is a star on the rise. Good stuff from the ladies here.

Overall Show

I don't know what I did to deserve being this blessed, but much like Monday's Elevation, this edition of Dark was also under 30 minutes and featured four matches. I'd love nothing more than for this to be the format every week, but I realize that won't be the case every week and that the only reason it happened this week was because they taped ROH TV as well. This was an improvement over Elevation with some better wrestling and an overall more bearable show.

SEE MORE: Dark Reviews