10 AEW Dark Matches You Must See

3. Jurassic Express Vs Panda X-Press (November 24th 2020)

Kenny Omega Joey Janela
AEW

A routine win for Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy had a can't-miss quality thanks to their opponents - a couple of working pandas. Somehow, this seemed to fly under the radar too.

Cursed perhaps by the calendar - AEW took a hit around Thanksgiving as pandemic-addled friends and families did everything they could to be together, rather than watch wrestling - this high banter tag match didn't seem to charm an audience increasingly engaged by banter wrestling and (at the risk of overstating the novelty of a guy in a full on panda head) esoteric ideas.

AEW has presented itself as a buffet since the beginning, but never had they looked more like one when an act with the same name as a famous West Coast all-you-can-eat tried to take on a boy and his dinosaur.

Outside of a small heat sequence at Jungle Boy's expense (a panda hitting a frog splash was the highlight), the match mostly played on Ultimo Panda's rotten conditioning and hilarous mask - particularly when he squared up to Luchasaurus late in the day.

Wrestling's not knowingly stupid enough, without it eventually offending the sensibilities of the fanbase. This did loads of the former and absolutely none of the latter.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett