8 Ups & 1 Down From AEW Dark (Oct 15)
In which Kenny Omega and Joey Janela have the best TV match of the year.
All Elite Wrestling Dark's maiden voyage was a neat, tidy hour of solid-but-unspectacular matches bound together by studio host Tony Schiavone. It was a light, breezy watch that passed quickly, justified Darby Allin's number one contendership bout with Jimmy Havoc via a win over CIMA, and suffered from only a couple of lulls, though there were few indications that AEW's new B-show would become essential viewing on the increasingly hectic modern wrestling calendar.
That changed last night.
Why?
Because AEW booked Kenny Omega vs. Joey Janela in a Lights Out unsanctioned match. For YouTube.
Dark's second episode was an improvement on its first primarily because of the blockbuster main event, though this wasn't the only highlight. Nothing on this show was outright bad. Yes, AEW probably need to reconfigure the taping schedule to prevent crowd burnout as this problem adversely affected what should've been a popping SCU/CIMA vs. Hybrid 2/Dark Order match, but that's a minor quibble. The rest of the show delivered.
From the main event's insane violence to one particularly personality-packed undercard performance, let's break down the latest episode of AEW's free web series...