AEW Dark Review - May 3, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

John Silver def. Ryan Nemeth

Nemeth has been getting a ton of time dedicated to him on Being The Elite in recent months and I'm not sure why. I know he's a friend of the show and they like giving him a creative outlet I suppose, but his skits usually aren't entertaining or funny and his matches tend to be bland more often than not. He was bragging about being undefeated in one-on-one action in 2022 and I thought it might lead to him getting squashed on Dynamite or Rampage, but he didn't even make it that far. This was better than your average Ryan Nemeth match, largely because of Silver.

Varsity Blonds def. The Workhorsemen

As I've said before, The Workhorsemen is a much better fit for JD Drake than the dumb Wingmen crap. I don't know if he's still officially aligned with them or not, but I hope he and Anthony Henry continue to team because they have strong chemistry as partners. This was a nice sprint between them and Varsity Blonds, who have been glorified jobbers for many months now. Post-match, Varsity Blonds sent a message to House of Black and they'll call them out on Wednesday's Dynamite. Can House of Black please move past the same two feuds?

Shawn Spears def. Lord Crewe

It's been a while since we got our last Shawn Spears squash. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. I'm sorry but there's nothing remotely interesting about Spears. He's been playing his role as MJF's lead lackey well, but on his own, he's as boring as can be. That said, I realize they have to give him the occasional win so he's not a total loser. I'm looking forward to Wardlow eventually destroying him.

Team Taz (FTW Champion Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs) def. Terry Yaki and Jay Lucas

Terry Yaki is quite the clever name, I must say. He and Lucas held there own against Team Taz, but considering Starks and Hobbs just beat Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland recently on Dynamite, this probably shouldn't have lasted as long as it did. A more straightforward squash should have sufficed. Nonetheless, a win is a win and I'm happy Team Taz are finally building momentum after months of doing nothing.

Julia Hart def. Jacey Love

Hart was just in action on Monday's edition of Elevation and appeared alongside Varsity Blondes earlier in this episode. Assuming she's back with them on Dynamite on Wednesday, she'll be getting a ton of screen time this week. I don't know if I needed to see her in action twice so most of her matches are the same, but hey, the more experience she gets, the better. She continues to show nice aggression, but the eyepatch is still stupid. She should probably start switching up the ring gear too if she's going to keep the mean streak.

Tony Nese def. Leon Ruffin

Ruffin is obviously the former Leon Ruff from WWE NXT. According to a quick Google search, Leon Ruff isn't his real name, but Ruffin is his real last name. It makes me wonder if WWE owns his old ring name and that's why he tweaked it. Regardless, it was cool to make an appearance here following his release from WWE last August. He isn't someone AEW needs to sign, but he plays the enhancement role exceptionally well. He had a fun little match with Nese here.

Angelico def. Yuya Uemura

Uemura is a Young Lion from New Japan Pro-Wrestling's LA Dojo. Personally, I'm not familiar with him at all, but he had an impressive showing in this match. I suspect we'll be seeing more fresh faces from NJPW in the weeks ahead as we approach Forbidden Door next month. It gives them more exposure, so that helps NJPW. Angelico is typically very exciting to watch, but this was fairly formulaic and thus nothing about it stood out. Angelico was already dead in the water in AEW, but he's even worse off with Jack Evans' contract not being renewed.

Dante Martin def. Invictus Khash

Poor Dante. His lost his tag team partner for nearly a year, reunited with him in March and now is back on his own again due to Darius getting re-injured (supposedly it wasn't wrestling related according to his own Twitter). He'll be just fine flying solo for the time being, but the situation does suck. At any rate, this was a good outing. Khash has stood out more than most enhancement talent AEW tends to use. It was also mentioned afterward that Martin will be facing Rey Fenix in a men's Owen Hart Cup qualifier on Wednesday's Dynamite, which should be a banger.

Tori Storm def. Diamante

I've been praising Diamante's work on Dark for months and hoped her win streak in singles competition would lead her to getting a match on Dynamite or Rampage (regardless of whether she won or lost), but similar to Nemeth, it only earned her a match against an established talent on Dark. At least it was positioned as the main event. They had a quality contest and I appreciate that Diamante was able to score as much offense as she did.

Overall Show

Not only was Dark back to being filmed at Universal Studios this week, it was also over an hour long for the first time in a while. Both of those things immediately dropped this show down a full letter grade even though I don't actually grade these shows. In all seriousness, this was a perfectly fine episode albeit a little long in the tooth. I maintain that nine squash matches is too many, but we had some competitive matches early on and in the main event along an announcement regarding Dynamite (Varsity Blonds calling out House of Black) which made the near-80 minutes of wrestling more worthwhile.

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