AEW Dark Review - December 13, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Tay Melo def. Miranda Vionette

Melo has a match coming up on the Winter Is Coming edition of Dynamite against Ruby Soho, so this served as a quick warm-up win for her. This was over almost immediately, and honestly, I didn't mind one bit. Melo is established and experienced, so she wouldn't have benefited from a competitive contest here. That said, I'm hoping Soho beats her because it feels like Soho never wins the more important matches.

The Factory (QT Marshall, Lee Johnson and Cole Karter) def. Joe Keys, Chris Steeler and LSG

The Factory are the first people who come to mind when I think of Dark because it feels like they're featured on every episode, and that's not necessarily a good thing. I'm sure Johnson and Karter are learning a lot from Marshall behind the scenes, but as an on-air act, The Factory are impossible to care about. This was an extended showcase for them and definitely did not need to be as long as it was.

Zack Clayton def. Steve Pena

Clayton will get these occasional wins on his own on Dark, but they'll never amount to anything and he tends to lose against everyone on the actual roster. I know you can say the same thing about Emi Sakura, but at least her matches are more enjoyable most of the time. Clayton is just generic and would really benefit from either cutting more promos or a character profile. This was passable but accomplished nothing.

Kip Sabian def. Tony Deppen

Sabian has largely been winning on the Dark shows as of late, which should come as no surprise since it appears he's being built up for a shot at Orange Cassidy's AEW All-Atlantic Championship that he obviously isn't going to win. As for Deppen, he was shown in the crowd at ROH Final Battle, so it's likely he'll be rejoining Ring of Honor once ROH TV gets going soon. This was a simple squash for Sabian.

Eddie Kingston and Ortiz def. The Trustbusters (Slim J and Jeeves Kay)

It's honestly egregious that AEW doesn't have more for Kingston to do at the moment. I know this team with Ortiz is keeping busy in Santana's absence (assuming he eventually reunites with Ortiz), but they're beating nobodies on the Dark shows and it's a total waste of Kingston. Hell, these weren't even the more notable members of Trustbusters, so how much was this supposed to mean? This was decent but should have been over quicker than it was. Kingston and Ortiz shouldn't have struggled to beat these undercard bums.

Overall Show

As I always say, I'm a big fan of the shorter shows, so keeping this to roughly 30 minutes was smart. However, I'm not sure I could've sat through this edition of Dark if it was any longer. Even with only five minutes, this was a painfully boring show. That includes an Eddie Kingston match in the main event the crowd didn't give a crap about because of who he and Ortiz were in the ring with. None of the other matches were particularly interesting, either, so this felt like a waste of a show.

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