Nerdly » ‘All Elite Wrestling: Dark’ Review (May 12th 2020)

14th May2020

‘All Elite Wrestling: Dark’ Review (May 12th 2020)

by Nathan Favel

Welcome to this week’s review of All Elite Wrestling: Dark, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have more matches on this show than ever before…but are they good? I love you…you bastard. It’s wrestling time!

Match #1: Colt Cabana defeated Shawn Dean

My Opinion: 2.9 out of 5 – This wasn’t bad, but it also felt like one of those old tune-up matches from back in the day and those just feel like a fast way to go real slow. Both guys looked good, but a little more time wouldn’t have hurt.

Match #2: Jurassic Express defeated Mike Reed & Ryan Rembrandt

My Opinion: 2.4 out of 5 – This wasn’t quite as exciting as I was expecting a match from the JE to be, but it wasn’t bad either.

Match #3: Private Party defeated Lee Johnson & Musa

My Opinion: 2.2 out of 5 – There are some good bumps and spots here, but as a match, this just felt like a reason to go to the bath-room. Jeez, I’m going full-b—-, aren’t I?

Match #4: 10 defeated Jon Cruz

My Opinion: 2.1 out of 5 – This was two or so minutes of “Hola!”. Yeah, two minutes is not much time to do anything, unless you’re Kurt Angle or AJ Styles or Bryan Danielson or OJ Simpson with a Football/White Bronco/Knife… I hate that guy.

Match #5: Fenix defeated Alan Angels

My Opinion: 3.2 out of 5 – There’s some excellent wrestling in here, but the match never felt like more than just some moves. Nobody looked bad in this match. This was a nice commercial for what these guys can do, but I didn’t need another advertisement of their potential, because I’m already sold on them both, like a lot of us are.

Match #6: Kris Statlander defeated Dani Jordyn

My Opinion: 3 out of 5 – Kris and Dani had a good match that likely won’t set the sky on fire, but won’t block the stars from sight either.

Match #7: Orange Cassidy defeated Jason Cade

My Opinion: 2.5 out of 5 – OC’s shtick was fun here (hands-in-the-pockets-wrestling), but this was just three or so minutes of The Elite and Tony Khan dragging their feet on making OC a big star. This slow build they’re doing just feels like it’s allowing people to see how weak the gimmick is, instead of presenting and showing the possibilities of the wrestler himself.

Match #7: Britt Baker defeated Skylar Moore

My Opinion: 2.7 out of 5 – Britt won over Skylar, because she’s…an evil dentist? Britt is getting good at portraying a heel, but she still doesn’t feel like one. Imagine Ricky Steamboat going heel after getting booed during one of the matches with Ric Flair from ’89…yeah, he’s good at it, but who will pay for evil Ricky Steamboat (besides 23 people out of 10 million)? Britt is a star, but her having to do this re-vamp so early into her run with AEW just makes it feel like she wasn’t over before (she was…bad booking from The Elite kept her at level 1). All in all, this was okay, but since this was in an effort to turn a natural face further away from the thing she should be doing, I’d argue that the match just felt futile.

Match #8: (Main Event) Jimmy Havoc defeated Dr. Luther – No Disqualification Match

My Opinion: 3.3 out of 5 – This was the best match of the show and was brutal enough to make me forget about that Mike Tyson footage of his latest spar (Holy s—, he’s f—— mean.). These guys had a wild little thing that needed more time to really make an impression, but at least it made an impression in them…because they hit each other. Havoc is becoming the star of this show and that’s just fine with me. How many damn doctors are on this show? Are they on Microsoft Teams, the most pretentious commercial of the year? Anyway, this was the right match to end the show with, as it felt like an actual main event.