AEW Dark Review - June 14, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

QT Marshall def. Alan "5" Angels

The Factory's feud with The Dark Order continues. As I've said before, it feels like a new low for the once-uber-popular Dark Order stable and I can't bring myself to care, but maybe it will be produce some solid matches. This was actually pretty good. Marshall bores me to tears, but the guy can work. That said, Angels losing was a weird choice considering he's taken some stars to the limit in the past and has more upside than Marshall at this point.

Bobby Fish def. Brock Anderson

Fish was having a ton of singles matches when he first came into AEW, but he's mostly been doing tag team stuff since reuniting with Kyle O'Reilly in December. It's nice to see him on his own once in a while and this was a glorified squash with Fish on offense for a majority of it. He continued to attack Anderson after the bell, which brought out Darby Allin to a big pop. There was a time when Allin was almost never on the Dark shows because he was a regular on Dynamite and Rampage, but that hasn't been the case in a while due to how deemphasized he's been.

Jericho Appreciation Society (Daniel Garcia, "Daddy Magic" Matt Mernard and "Cool Hand" Angelo Parker) def. Jack Banning, Sinn Bodhi and Ray Rosas

Mernard and Parker were just in action on Elevation and here they were joined by Garcia. These three were a decent trio when they started out in AEW last summer, but I've lost virtually all interest in them now that they're a part of Jericho Appreciation Society. This was a perfectly fine showcase for them. Parker got on the mic afterward and hyped the Blood and Guts match for the end of the month.

Kris Statlander, Ruby Soho and Anna Jay def. Diamante, Nyla Rose and Emi Sakura

You'd think Rose would ditch Sakura as a partner by now considering it rarely ends well for her, but I understand it's AEW's way of continuing to feature her without giving her too many singles wins so she isn't always at the top of the rankings. Soho feels like the ultimate loser, so I'm glad it was Statlander who picked up the win for her team ahead of her eventual shot at Jade Cargill's AEW TBS Championship. This was a well-worked match and it received a decent amount of time.

Anthony Ogogo def. Ruiz by Knockout

Ogogo is easily the most interesting member of The Factory and we've been seeing a bit more of him lately on the Dark shows, which is good. However, none of this really matters until he ends up back on Dynamite or Rampage, and there's been no indication that's happening any time soon. He dominated Ruiz and won fairly quickly, so this was exactly what it needed to be and the knockout finishes with him are always appreciated.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Nick Comoroto

Takeshita has been super impressive so far in his AEW run. I don't know how long he'll be around for, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts. He's someone I wasn't too familiar with previously, but he won me over in his matches with Jay Lethal and Adam Page. I've pretty much given up on the idea that Comoroto is going to amount to anything, so Takeshita beating him made sense. It was also an enjoyable match to boot with a fun clash of styles.

Matt Sydal def. Taylor Rust

It's always good to see Sydal in action on his own. As for Rust, he obviously spent some time in WWE NXT last year and has since made a few appearances for AEW as an enhancement talent. Despite his obvious lack of charisma, he's impressive in the ring and I thought these two had a nice outing here. I doubt it leads to anything significant for Sydal, whose essentially a stepping stone at this point, but like I said, I enjoyed this.

"All Ego" Ethan Page def. Frankie Kazarian

This was a rare Dark main event that actually made sense storyline-wise from stuff that's happened on Dynamite and Rampage. Kazarian's team lost to Page's team at Double or Nothing, so they mixed it up again here ahead of Page's qualifying match for the AEW All-Atlantic Championship this Wednesday on Dynamite. His opponent will be Miro, so while there's no way he's winning that, this gave him a minor momentum boost before then. It was a quality main event. Post-match, Christopher Daniels saved Kazarian from Men of the Year, and if that leads to Daniels vs. Scorpio Sky for the AEW TNT Championship, count me in.

Overall Show

This edition of Dark was a little longer than I would've liked at an hour and five minutes, but the amount of matches was acceptable at eight. It seemed like there were a few more competitive matches than usual between Page vs. Kazarian in the main event, Marshall vs. Angels in the opener, Takeshita vs. Comoroto in the middle, and the six-woman tag team match. Those all made this an above-average episode and the non-Universal Studios live crowd helped as well.

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