AEW Dark Review - October 12, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Shawn Dean def. Andrew Lockhart

There was a Lockhart on last week's edition of Dark, but that was Erik Lockhart. This was his brother Andrew, so I got the two confused. In fact, Andrew was in action against The Creed Brothers on last week's episode of WWE 205 Live. I've been impressed with Dean in the past and I'm honestly surprised AEW hasn't done more with him as a wrestler, but I guess he's more of a backstage guy. This was a nice little outing and I wouldn't have minded it going a little longer.

KiLynn King def. Ashley D'Amboise

Both of these women have been regulars on the Dark shows throughout the last year. The only difference is that King has scored far more wins. I don't think she's "all elite" in the same way Dean is (contractually, I mean), but as I've said in the past, she's a perfectly competent wrestler and can be counted on for quality matches. I assume she was given a victory here so she can lose to someone on the roster on an upcoming episode.

Wardlow def. Darian Bengston

I'm happy whenever we can get a standard squash from Wardlow without Shawn Spears involved. If he keeps racking up wins, wouldn't he ranked eventually? Him and Sammy Guevara for the AEW TNT Championship could be interesting. At any rate, this was pretty straightforward stuff with Wardlow completely killing his opponent. There appeared to be one ugly botch from Bengston, so that was unfortunate.

Evil Uno def. Anthony Greene

It was really cool to see Greene brought back after the stellar showing he had against FTR on Dark a few days ago. It's well documented that he's a talented dude and deserves a real chance, something he didn't get while in WWE. He was fired in less than a year and was largely relegated to 205 Live, a show no one watched. They didn't have a ton of time here, but this was an enjoyable affair with Greene looking credible in defeat and Uno scoring a rare singles win.

Overall Show

At just over 22 minutes, this may have been the shortest edition of Dark we've gotten since it started. If it's not, it's certainly up there. And yes, it was taped at the Universal Studios, so I assume this was the leftovers from that batch of tapings. Doing a show with just four enhancement matches is pointless, but I'll take this over the 90-minute shows that feel like they drag on forever (though the in-ring action has been significantly better lately compared to when they were taping in front of the show before Dynamite on the road). There's nothing to go out of your way to see from this episode, but it was quick and painless.

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