AEW Dark Review - August 16, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Ari Daivari def. Fuego Del Sol

I assume this was taped before Sonny Kiss joined The Trustbusters last Friday on Rampage, hence why he didn't join the rest of The Trustbusters at ringside for this match. Fuego was getting a bit of a push on Dark in his feud with The Factory, but now that seems to be over as they prepare to push Daivari's new group. At least it was a competitive contest before Daivari ate defeat. Trustbusters will be involved in an AEW World Trios Championship Tournament quarterfinal match on Friday's Rampage, so it made sense to make look Daivari look strong before then.

Willow Nightingale def. Robyn Renegade

The Renegade twins have been regulars on AEW programming for quite a while now, so I was fine with Nightingale taking a little longer to put her away. It was a well-worked match for the most part, but the Renegade sisters really need to stop doing the "twin magic" crap. They aren't identical and the referee constantly looks like a moron for letting them get away with it. It also doesn't win them many matches, so what purpose does it really serve?

Brock Anderson def. Serpentico

Anderson's television time has been dramatically decreased since his tag partner Lee Johnson went down with an injury. I'm not necessarily complaining because he's still inexperienced, but this did serve to get him back on the show. It's well documented that I'm no fan of Chaos Project, but Serpentico does a decent job of getting others over on his own and selling for their offense. Arn Anderson managed his son here, but he has fallen far from when he was managing Cody Rhodes on Dynamite every week.

Abadon def. Mafiosa

​Any time Abadon pops up on one of these Dark shows, I remember that she's still on the roster. As someone who isn't an Abadon fan, I'm happy she isn't featured every week, but she's featured so irregularly that it begs the question of what the point of having her around is (unless she's on a pay-per-appearance type of deal nowadays). This was basically any Abadon match you've ever seen.

Angelico def. Baliyan Akki

I've said it before, but Angelico is doomed on his own in AEW. Don't get me wrong, the guy is super talented and I've liked his work since his Lucha Underground days, but he's been booked so poorly that I don't ever see him escaping enhancement status in AEW. I assume this only existed to give Angelico a win so it means something when he's eventually beaten. At least it was on the shorter side.

Emi Sakura def. Renee Michelle

You can take what I said at the end of the previous paragraph about Angelico's match and apply it here. Sakura wrestles weekly for Dark and Elevation and loses every time she faces an established talent (as she should), so in order for her win-loss record to not be completely lopsided, she'll win every now and again in these matches that don't matter. This was what it needed to be.

Josh Woods def. Cobra

In the eyes of the AEW audience who watch Dark, Woods went from being a random jobber to someone who has since formed an alliance with Tony Nese and Mark Sterling. It gets him on television, so there's that. I don't see the chemistry myself and I think Woods has a higher ceiling than that, but again, it's better than nothing. This was a boring bout, but the tap-out win from the submission specialist Woods was cool.

Rohit Raju def. Invictus Khash

I'm glad Raju is picking up wins on Dark because he's a standout and I really enjoyed his work as Impact X-Division Champion over in IMPACT. Truthfully, he feels like a better fit in The Trustbusters than Slim J or Parker Boudreaux. Nonetheless, this was a solid showcase for him and the fact he got a post-match promo as well made me optimistic that we'll be seeing more from Raju on Dark and that he could be under some sort of deal to AEW at some point if he isn't already.

Skye Blue def. Charlette Renegade

I can't remember a single match Blue has won on AEW TV, but it's nice to see her score the occasional win when she can on the Dark shows. That said, this wasn't very good. Despite having potential, Blue has a lot more to learn and this wasn't one of Charlette's better showings. On the bright side, their dumb twin magic crap was caught by the ref here, so they didn't get away with it twice on the same show.

Bear Country def. Axel Rico and Victor Iniestra

It feels like we haven't seen a whole lot of Bear Country in action on AEW programming lately. That's a bummer because I'm a fan of theirs and they've worked well with pretty much every team they've faced in AEW. This was kept relatively short and sweet and reminded viewers of Bear Country's dominance. Fingers crossed it isn't long before we see them on Dynamite or Rampage again (even if it's in an enhancement capacity).

Kayla Rossi def. Avery Breaux

I tried to look up the last match Rossi had in AEW (because it's been many months since we saw her last), but this was the only one I could find. Maybe I thought she competed previously in AEW when in reality she only managed Joey Janela and got physical a few times. Either way, I'm shocked she was brought back. A gentleman named Diamond Sheik was managing her, so clearly this wasn't a one-off. She has a long way to go in the ring, but this could have been worse.

Cezar Bononi def. Marcus Kross

Bononi looks physically intimidating, but sadly, he hasn't improved very much since his stint in WWE NXT. That's why he's better off with the Wingmen goofs because his singles matches aren't the smoothest. He really should be kept limited. While not awful, this was one of those matches that should have been cut from the card to make the show slightly shorter. It was a waste of time.

Powerhouse Hobbs def. Blake Christian

I was shocked to hear Hobbs cut a promo that was more than 15 seconds long on Wednesday's Dynamite. He's not a bad talker at all and he should get more opportunities like that in the future. His feud with Ricky Starks has mainly progressed on Dynamite lately and that's a positive sign. I would've had no problem with Hobbs making short work of Christian here, but the fact it was longer did make it one of the better bouts on the show.

Overall Show

Dark was back at Universal Studios this week with 13 matches and almost 90 minutes in length. These are the editions of Dark I loathe because anything longer than an hour is overkill, at least in my opinion. The show started and ended with competitive matches, but most of the matches in the middle were pretty pointless. This episode definitely dragged by the end and was one of the weaker installments in recent memory, but it was largely serviceable on the whole.

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