AEW Dark Review - May 31, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

ROH Women's World Champion Mercedes Martinez def. Viva Van

This marked Martinez's second defense of the ROH Women's World Championship this week after already beating Mazzerati on Monday's edition of Elevation. Viva Van gave it a commendable effort and was able to score some offense before eating defeat. This was what it needed to be as Martinez racks up another win as champ. I appreciate any excuse to get Bobby Cruise back ring announcing on a major platform, and Caprice Coleman was fun on commentary as well.

The Butcher and The Blade def. Hunter Grey and Paul Titan

With Andrade El Idolo basically announcing the end of The Andrade Family Office at Double or Nothing, what does that mean for Butcher and Blade? Who will they align with next? Does anyone actually care? I kid, I kid. I've always enjoyed their intensity, but as characters, they bore me to tears. This was the usual dominant performance from them. I have no desire to see them challenging for the AEW World Tag Team Championship any time soon.

Anthony Ogogo def. Carlie Bravo

As I've said before, Ogogo's appearances on the Dark shows need to be more consistent if he's going to start building momentum again. It's been almost exactly one year since we last saw him on AEW TV and I'm not sure where he'd fit in right now. He has a unique style that we got to see again here, making short work of Bravo. That said, I don't know how long we can see him knock dudes out before he has to move on to more credible competition.

Jamie Hayter def. Danika Della Rouge

I feel like we don't get enough of Hayter in action these days. I'm anxiously awaiting the day she turns on Britt Baker so we can see her get a singles push, but that's not guaranteed considering the state of AEW's women's division at the moment and how little some of the ladies are featured. Nonetheless, this was a short and sweet squash for her. More wins for her isn't a bad thing, but I would like to see her in something more substantial soon.

The Dark Order (John Silver, Evil Uno and Preston "10" Vance) def. Serpentico and The Wingmen ("Pretty" Peter Avalon and Ryan Nemeth)

Is Avalon the only person who started out under an actual contract with AEW who is now under a pay-per-appearance deal and remains a regular on the Dark shows? The Wingmen are still a stupid group in my opinion, but at least Cezar Bononi and JD Drake aren't with them as much anymore. I wasn't high on the comedy crap in this match, but it made for a decent main event, even though I don't expect it to lead anywhere for Dark Order.

Overall Show

A 30-minute edition of Dark earns an instant thumbs-up in my book. That's also after Elevation only ran 20 minutes on Monday. I'm sure that's because AEW was in Las Vegas all weekend and didn't want to burn that audience out on too many matches for the Dark shows, but the shorter show lengths were appreciated for this week, at least by me. Nothing stood out about this episode whatsoever and can easily be skipped, though the ROH Women's title once again being defended was somewhat notable.

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