AEW Dark
November 12, 2019
Charlotte, NC

Doing announcing tonight is Arn Fucking Anderson! Except he has the energy of Winnie The Poo. Goldenboy sucking up and humoring Anderson was close to sounding as fake as WWE commentary.

Big Swole vs Hikaru Shida - 6.5/10
Power vs Speed match with Shida having the experience advantage. The wrestling was good, nothing special other than good executed moves. Shida won with a running knee.

Hikaru Shida Interview - Shida said that she came to show the Japanese style to the world. She was asked about the Riho vs Sakura match and she picked wrong. You could tell that Shida was thinking hard on translating in her head sometimes.

Chuck Taylor has replaced Arn Anderson on commentary, which should be far better.

Shalandra Royal & Shazza McKenzie vs Nyla Rose & Leva Bates - Squash
I'm not sure how to feel about Rose returning to action on Dark after losing to Riho, but I guess if there are no bigger plans, here is just ok.

This was a handicap squash with Leva Bates in on a free ride into her first 'W' in the records. This was all Nyla beating up Shazza and Royal, playing with them, at one point she carried Shazza's limp body to the corner so she could tag Royal, all while Bates read a book on the corner. Nyla pinned both women with a double Swanton. Too long in my opinion, but a perfect squash for Rose.

The book that Bates was reading was actually a picture book.

Post-match - Rose was asked why she didn't tag Bates. Rose said that she doesn't need partners, that she is the most dominant wrestler in the women's roster and that she'll kill them all.

They had Schiavone running down the Full Gear card, so that's a big fuck up, even if these are matches from last week. This was the same footage from the previous Dark, so it seems they just didn't tape new stuff.

TH2 & Kip Sabian vs SCU (Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) & CIMA - 7.5/10
Ok match, good wrestling but just normal stuff. Sky was the babyface in peril, CIMA got the hot tag. Sabian got to show a lot this time around and Evans was awesome as usual. CIMA pinned Sabian with a Meteora.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Ok show, but surely another one of the weak ones. Treating this show like if happened before the PPV made it feel unnecessary to watch from the start, it felt dated.

Thanks for taking the bullet on this one Cero! Do you think the meaning behind the picture book is that we're going to learn Leva Bates can't read?

NWK2000 wrote: ↑Nov 13th, '19, 12:21 Thanks for taking the bullet on this one Cero! Do you think the meaning behind the picture book is that we're going to learn Leva Bates can't read?

that would be the greatest babyface turn in history, and yes, i said babyface and that is depressing.

I think they really need to move Dark to Fridays.

Big Red Machine wrote: ↑Nov 13th, '19, 13:21 I think they really need to move Dark to Fridays.

I think so to, it's Youtube, they have control to release when they want, they can even release an hour before Smackdown and if smackdown is boring and Dak starts a buzz, people may put SD no hold while they checkout AEW.

cero2k wrote: ↑Nov 13th, '19, 12:25

NWK2000 wrote: ↑Nov 13th, '19, 12:21 Thanks for taking the bullet on this one Cero! Do you think the meaning behind the picture book is that we're going to learn Leva Bates can't read?

that would be the greatest babyface turn in history, and yes, i said babyface and that is depressing.

Well, these are wrestling fans we're talking about. Have you seen wrestling Twitter.