9 Ups & 2 Downs For AEW Dark: Elevation

8. Paul Wight Impresses Immediately

Paul Wight Tony Schiavone AEW
Instagram/@paulwight

Commentators in pro wrestling don't function to remind the viewers at home of a wrestler's nickname. They don't function to scream incessantly in a god-awful bid to engineer drama. The colour commentator functions to enhance the meaning of a match and to provide insights into the exact reason why physical combat hurts and why the wrestlers attempt to hurt one another in the specific ways that they do.

Paul Wight was instantly very good at this.

A practitioner of the chest slap himself, he revealed the strategy behind the move to the audience at home, one that appears to be exchanged arbitrarily in a hollow strong style riff at times: the idea is to slowly wind one's opponent to drain their tank and capitalise down the stretch.

A quality insight offered with authority: within minutes, Wight offered an extra dimension to the booth.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!