AEW Dark Review - March 14, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Dark Order (John Silver and Alex Reynolds) def. The Outrunners

Dark Order recently resurfacing on Dynamite and reuniting with Adam Page hardly means anything because this will happen every few months before they disappear to Dark. Granted, they'll be teaming with Adam Page to take on Blackpool Combat Club on Wednesday's Dynamite, but the outcome feels like a foregone conclusion and I doubt we'll be seeing much of them after that. This was a fine way to give them a momentum boost before then, even though it will be Evil Uno and Stu Grayson teaming with Page and not Silver and Reynolds.

Riho def. Diamante

Having Riho continue to beat established names is smart. Having her beat an uncontracted enhancement talent would have been understandable, but she's coming off of wins over Toni Storm and Nyla Rose, so I liked that she faced someone who was more of a threat than some random no-namer. That got more time than I was expecting with Diamante scoring a fair amount of offense, but I'm not complaining because it was a well-wrestled matchup with nice action.

Sonny Kiss def. Terry Kid

The Trustbusters are dead in the water and I don't see them ever recovering. It's a shame because I think Kiss is talented, but it's not like he's been that much better off since joining the group. That's why this match felt like a waste of time because I don't know what it accomplishes in the long run. It didn't help that both of them played the heel role, so the crowd didn't have any incentive to cheer or care.

Julia Hart def. Zoey Lynn

Hart doesn't wrestle on Dark or Elevation as much as she once did, so that's a plus. Yes, she benefits from the reps, but every match of hers is the same and it's not as if she's wrestling on Dynamite or Rampage at all. Rather, she simply stands in the corner of House of Black and that's it. Her matches aren't terrible and she's shown signs of improvement, but like the Sonny Kiss match, this didn't do much for me. At least it was kept on the shorter side.

Action Andretti def. Lee Johnson

Andretti recently lost to Sammy Guevara in the main event of Rampage, so that just might mark the end of his short-lived push. He beat Chris Jericho clean three months ago and he's already headlining Dark, but I don't think most people are surprised by then. He can clearly go, but I'd like to hear more from him on the mic eventually. Johnson and Cole Karter are the outcasts from The Factory left with no direction, but they're good wrestlers, if nothing else. This was a solid main event that was a little more competitive than it probably should have been considering Andretti was a somewhat featured player on AEW TV recently.

Overall Show

The best part about this edition of Dark was that it was under an hour and featured only five matches. I'd love for this to be the norm for Dark (especially after most recent episodes have gone nearly 90 minutes with an absurd amount of matches), but I'm not holding my breath. That made this a slightly-above-average show by Dark standards with Riho vs. Diamante and Andretti vs. Johnson in particular standing out.

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