AEW Dark Review - February 4, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jurassic Express def. Sonny Kiss and Brandon Cutler

Kiss and Cutler are definitely an oddball tag team, but Cutler is teaming with Kiss to make it look like he has more of a chance of winning considering he has yet to win a single match in AEW. They're teasing that he'll join The Dark Order, and honestly, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing for him. From an in-ring standpoint, this was a fun little matchup and Jurassic Express were over huge.

Hikaru Shida def. Mel

This Nightmare Collective crap is complete garbage and I hate that the extremely talented Shida is getting dragged into it. I believe this was our first look at Mel in singles competition and she did not impress, at all. The match went way too long, but Mel came across like a marginally better version of Tamina. I also couldn't bring myself to care about Mel and Luther turning on Awesome Kong afterward. If it means the group is on the skids, however, then I'm in favor of it.

AEW World Tag Team Champion Kenny Omega and AEW Women's Champion Riho def. Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford

I'm not a huge fan of intergender wrestling, but this was very well wrestled and had a smart layout for the most part. It's difficult to take Riho seriously against someone like Sabian, but then again, Sabian hasn't been positioned as anyone special in AEW and Riho is the best women's wrestler they have. I think it was weirder watching Omega and Ford going toe-to-toe early on because Omega would crush her in a legitimate match, but that's merely nitpicking. Speaking of Ford, she had a breakout showing here and I'd like to see more of her going forward. My biggest issue with this was how it was seemingly recorded via fan cam at ringside and how it had terrible audio and lighting. I realize it took place on the Jericho Cruise, but would it have killed them to film this the same way Dynamite was filmed? It was almost nauseating and you know any other company would be lambasted by fans for it. They should have aired it as an exclusive on YouTube if this was what they were going to do.

Best Friends def. Shawn Spears and Colin Delaney

Having Taz on commentary for Delaney's surprise appearance was awesome given their history from WWE ECW a dozen years ago. It was almost too perfect. He was certainly a strange choice for Spears, but it ended up being an entertaining main event with Delaney holding his own and Best Friends being a blast as always. The face-off between Orange Cassidy and Tully Blanchard was especially great. I'm interested to see where this storyline with Spears is headed, but at the same time, I feel he's lost in the shuffle at the moment compared to where he was six months ago.

Overall Show

First and foremost, AEW needs to do a better job of airing matches that were taped on the same day as opposed to going back and forth between last week's show and the Jericho Cruise. The intergender match was one of the best that's aired on Dark in weeks, but the way it was taped was embarrassing. Meanwhile, Shida vs. Mel was a mess, but at least the other two tag matchups were enjoyable. This was an improvement over recent episodes that could have been better with a few tweaks.