AEW Dark Elevation results: House of Black, Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal in action

The first AEW Dark: Elevation of the year was a loaded one filmed last Wednesday before the New Year’s Smash edition of Dynamite in Broomfield, Colorado with Paul Wight and Matt Menard on the call.

Hikaru Shida defeated Tyra Russamee

While Shida made her entrance, they pointed out that she has never lost on this show. While that wasn’t a surprise, that’s a cool kind of stat they should use more. 

Shida taunted her opponent’s height, but the debuting Russamee cut her down to size and threw some kicks. Shida countered and tried to get the advantage in the corner but that ended up getting countered as well. After some more kicks from Russamee, Shida blocked one and countered with the Katana for the win.

Varsity Athletes (Josh Woods & Tony Nese) (w/ Mark Sterling) defeated Pillars Of Destiny (Hunter Grey & Paul Titan)

As the Varsity Athletes made their way out, Sterling had a mic with him and started going on a rant on how Woods wrestled two other guys as a warm-up, Nese did 100 sit-ups, and neither of them was sweating. The rest of the promo was generic heel speak about the city and its people. 

The Pillars of Destiny quickly became fan favorites and got a lot of offense in the beginning. It completely turned when Nese got the ref’s attention and Woods decked Grey with a right hand. Titan got the hot tag which lasted all of 30 seconds. After a blind tag from Woods, the Varsity Athletes hit an assisted Samoan drop for the win.

Isiah Kassidy & Matt Hardy defeated Atiba & Manny Lemons

I need more of Atiba & Lemons. I have never seen them wrestle before, but their names are too good. Kassidy and Hardy targeted Lemons to start and while Atiba got into it a little bit here and there, this one went exactly how you would expect. The babyfaces got all their spots in and ended with a Kassidy swanton bomb for the pin. Still no Twist of Fate for Hardy.

Later, Kassidy and Hardy were in the back talking about how orgasmic their victory was. Kassidy even moaned in Hardy’s ear. They were, of course, excited until Ethan Page interrupted reminding him of their contract. Hardy actually took Page’s side and then winked at Kassidy. All kinds of tips toward the Broken Matt Hardy gimmick in this segment.

Marina Shafir (w/ Nyla Rose) defeated Lilith Grimm

The commentary team were planting seeds of dissension between Shafir and Rose and made sure everyone knew that Vickie Guerrero wasn’t joining them. Shafir started the match distracted, having an argument with the former AEW Women’s Champion. She still dominated and got the ankle lock for the win.

ROH Women’s Champion Athena defeated Gypsy Mac

Angelico took a break from his Spanish announcing to join the English commentary team for this match. Athena was all over Mac, regularly taunting and dancing over Mac’s body. The ROH Women’s Champion was hitting some of the hardest shots of the night onto this poor girl. Mac came back with some shots of her own and a sunset flip, so Athena lost her cool and ended the match with her cross-face submission, followed by her usual post-match attack.

Dark Order (Alex Reynolds, Evil Uno & John Silver) defeated Spanish Announce Project (Luther & Serpentico) & Ryan Nemeth (w/ Angelico & Peter Avalon)

This was a very interesting matchup all around, and I don’t know if I even have enough characters to explain what was going on in this one which included all kinds of dancing and gyrations and chants (oh my!). The in-ring action itself was pretty vanilla as Dark Order were the babyfaces while SAP and Nemeth were the obvious heels. They tripped Uno and triple-teamed him right in front of the referee. A double eye poke led to both men going for the hot tag in the wrong corner.

Silver got the hot tag against Serpentico and after avoiding a DDT, Dark Order got him up for their assisted backdrop and the win.

Julia Hart defeated Leva Bates

This was quite the contrast of styles: the smiling and happy librarian vs. whatever is going on with Hart these days in the House of Black. Whatever she’s doing with the House, the crowd loves it and so do I.

Bates tried going for a handshake and offering her the Demon Slayer book she brought out with her. It was not successful as Hart instantly locked in her crossface variation for the quick win — her 17th straight.

Jay Lethal & Jeff Jarrett (w/ Satnam Singh & Sonjay Dutt) defeated Justin Andrews & Ryzin

Menard started questioning whether Jarrett even plays the guitar or not, which was really funny. The heel team quickly attacked Andrews and Ryzin before the match even got started. Lethal went for the figure four a couple of times and Ryzin kicked out of it, getting Andrews the hot tag. Right when he entered, though, he got hit with the Lethal Injection for the win.

Lethal & Jarrett challenge The Acclaimed for the AEW Tag Team titles on Wednesday.

House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) defeated Dean Alexander, Hagane Shinno & Rosario Grillo

The House has such an aura about them that when after leaving for a few months as they did, that didn’t change. They were on fire here, using perfect teamwork and tag team moves to dominate the supposed babyfaces. Each of the House members took one member of the other team and attacked them on the outside.

The only offense from the faces came from Shinno who got a hot tag. Shinno keeps getting this half push where they make him look like a star, but he just keeps losing. That can only go so far. 

He went for the top rope dropkick and a pin on Black, but he kicked out at two. The House finally recovered and got back into it. After some interference, Grillo went for a top rope move but as King knocked him out of the air, he came down oddly on his ankle and it twisted the wrong way. Matthews pinned him on the spot to pick up the win.

Grillo tweeted last week that he broke his fibula and will be out three-to-five months.