AEW Dark Review - April 5, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Ryan Nemeth def. Chandler Hopkins

On a random note, I spotted Nemeth walking into the arena for WWE NXT Stand & Deliver this past weekend where he had a front row seat for his brother's NXT Championship defense against Bron Breakker in the main event. The rest of the Wingmen goofs thankfully didn't accompany him to ringside for this rather mediocre match. It just sort of existed and I'm not sure why it did.

Sonny Kiss def. JP Harlow

Kiss' appearances on the Dark shows are becoming more frequent it seems, but he's not nearly as much of a regular as he was a year or two ago. As I've said before, I could certainly see him leaving when his contract expires eventually because it's clear AEW doesn't intend to ever use him on Dynamite or Rampage. The match felt like it ended abruptly, but this was decent otherwise.

Abadon def. Hyena Hera

I'm still not understanding what the purpose of keeping Abadon around is. I understand AEW doesn't outright release people unless they have a reason to and I think that's great, but like Kiss, Abadon is another person who we never see on TV and only wins meaningless matches on the Dark shows. The biggest difference is that Abadon is much worse than Kiss, at least in my opinion. The best thing I can say about this is that it was kept on the shorter side.

Tiger Ruas and Cezar Bononi def. Luke Sampson and Guillermo Rosas

Ruas and Bononi is a pairing I can get behind assuming sticks with AEW. I assume this was supposed to serve as something of a test run for them. Bononi is simply no good in the ring, but he can be carried by Ruas, who has potential. They have better chemistry together than Bononi does with the other Wingmen goofs and they showed that in this match. This was a dominant showing from them and I wouldn't mind seeing more from them as a tandem in the future.

Lance Archer def. Dean Alexander

Man, Archer has really fallen off in a matter of months. He went from being off the show for a while due to injury, coming back in an AEW World Championship feud, losing, and then losing again to Dustin Rhodes. There's been no follow-up on that, by the way. I guess it's nice he's killing dudes on Dark in the meantime, but I don't have high hopes for his trajectory in the company. This was a straightforward squash.

The Dark Order (Alan "5" Angels and Preston "10" Vance) def. The Factory (Aaron Solo and Nick Comoroto)

This was pretty much every tag team main event you've ever seen on Dark. That isn't to say it was technically bad, but there was absolutely nothing special about it. The only thing fans will likely remember from it is -1 pulling down QT Marshall's pants at ringside at the end. That's a sight I certainly didn't need to see. Every Factory match is the same, but at least Angels and Preston work well together and picked up the win.

Overall Show

For a six-match show, I can't complain. Granted, there was absolutely nothing worth going out of your way to see about this episode, but it's a big improvement over featuring nearly a dozen squash matches on a show that lasts almost 90 minutes. This went under an hour, so it was much more tolerable. You probably won't remember anything from this episode tomorrow, granted, but it was serviceable.

SEE MORE: Dark Reviews