AEW Dark Review - November 8, 2019

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Hikaru Shida def. Big Swole

Shida is one of the few ladies in AEW's women's division who I don't know much about yet she's quickly won me over. This was one of the better women's matches I've seen in AEW, despite not lasting long. This had a nice sense of urgency and I was glad Swole looked good in defeat. Speaking of Swole, it's since been confirmed that she has signed with AEW and that's a great pickup for them.

Nyla Rose and Leva Bates def. Shalandra Royal and Shazza McKenzie

I realize the commentators tried to make sense of it by saying that Rose wanted a Handicap match and was assigned a random partner by officials instead, but it was still strange seeing Rose and Bates team up after facing off against each other not too long ago on Dark. At any rate, this was designed to be an extended squash for Rose, and while it worked in that respect, it bored me to tears. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt like it would never end considering the crowd sat on their hands for this.

AEW World Tag Team Champions SCU and CIMA def. TheHybrid2 and Kip Sabian

I guess CIMA is an honorary member of SCU until Christopher Daniels returns from injury, which makes sense given his history with the group. Although this was a very well wrestled match, it felt like it lacked energy and the crowd looked drained. That's one of the disadvantages for taping the latter half of this show after Dynamite. It was fun and I'm glad CIMA got to shine, but it wasn't what it could have been based off the level of talent involved.

Overall Show

Dark usually airs on Tuesday nights, but I assume this was bumped to Friday since Full Gear airs on Saturday and AEW didn't want this to feel outdated if it aired next Tuesday. It was a bit better than what we got with the previous episode, even though the crowd was dead for the last two matches. There isn't anything must-see on this episode, but it did offer some solid last-minute hype for Full Gear.