AEW Dark Review - April 26, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Red Velvet def. Dulce Tormenta

Velvet recently beat Willow Nightingale to qualify for the women's Owen Hart Cup, so that's what she has coming up. Not only that, but she also recently turned heel by joining Jade Cargill's "baddie section." Don't get me wrong, she is far more natural as a heel and it was smart for her to embrace the boos, but it was never explained on TV why she turned and aligned with her former rival. As for this match, it was a solid showcase for Velvet and didn't overstay its welcome.

Lee Moriarty def. Serpentico

The best part of this match was the fact that Luther was nowhere to be seen at ringside. Less of Luther on the Dark shows, the better. At any rate, this was a nice little match. Serpentico is a goof (and Lance Archer murdering him last week on Rampage brought me great joy), but he played his role well here. Moriarty was on offense for a majority of this before picking up the victory as he should have.

Anna Jay and Skye Blue def. The Bunny and Raychell Rose

Rose has appeared for AEW before, and although Blue is also usually used in an enhancement role, Rose is a lot less established and thus it was obvious which team was winning. Jay has been bouncing around from partner to partner as of late and she hasn't had a chance to quality for the women's Owen Hart Cup, either. Tay Conti's heel turn left her in the dust and that has to be addressed on television. This was perfectly fine for what it was.

Penta Oscuro def. QT Marshall

Marshall attempted to get people to care about him by cutting a promo beforehand and crapping on the crowd. If nothing else, I applaud his effort. Marshall works better when he faces the younger guys and can help make them look better, not when he's facing people far higher on the totem pole than him that he shouldn't be having competitive matches with. The crowd was behind Penta throughout, but this should have been shorter.

Abadon def. Charlette Renegade

I'm surprised whenever Abadon is in action because I always forget she's still on the roster. Not only does she nearly never wrestle on Dynamite or Rampage, she's not a regular on the Dark shows, either. She'll pop up every few weeks, win a minute-long match, and disappear again. On the bright side, this too was no more than a minute long, so at least it was over quickly and didn't waste much time.

The Hardys, Top Flight and Frankie Kazarian def. Max Caster and The Andrade Family Office (Private Party, The Blade and Angelico)

Kazarian was a random partner for The Hardys and Top Flight, while Caster teaming with The A.F.O. was random as well. This was basically AEW's way of squeezing multiple notable names into one match just to get them on the show. I still don't have an issue with The Hardys pulling Dark duty once in a while as long as it doesn't become consistent. I assume this was taped a few weeks ago because Darius Martin is now reportedly hurt again, which really sucks. I didn't mind this receiving as much time as it did because of the vast amount of people involved. The middle portion was a bit boring, but the action was enjoyable enough and the crowd was into The Hardys. The A.F.O. merely exist at this point to lose to The Hardys, so the outcome was never in doubt.

Overall Show

Similar to last week's edition, this was also taped in an actual arena and not at Universal Studios. The crowd's enthusiasm added to my enjoyment of the episode. The first five matches were business as usual (the Abadon squash served no purpose), but the main event was featured an appearance from The Hardys, so there was that. Of course, this isn't a show you need to make time to see, but it was an adequate hour of wrestling that flew by.

SEE MORE: Dark Reviews