AEW Dark results: SCU & CIMA vs. TH2 & Kip Sabian
The Big Takeaway —
Kip Sabian & The Hybrid2 may want to find new trios partners, as they fell to 0-2 as a three-man team after a loss to SCU & CIMA in the main event.
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Welcome to a special Friday edition of AEW Dark, a show so sudden and surprising that AEW’s own Twitter page had nothing about it five minutes before the show. Their first tweet about it was literally just as the show began.
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Justin Roberts introduced Arn Anderson as a special member of the announce team tonight, joining Excalibur and Goldenboy. Unfortunately, Arn only announced the first match.
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Hikaru Shida defeated Big Swole
Goldenboy broke out the “Rolodex of words” when talking about Arn Anderson’s “prowess” in the ring. Anyway, Swole tried using her size to bully Shida early, but Shida got the early advantage. It was highlighted by her jumping off of a chair outside the ring and landing a knee strike to Swole’s chin.
Swole missed a series of strikes and leg sweeps and hit a headbutt, followed by a flatliner for a two count.
Shida missed one knee strike, but hit on a second attempt after ducking a Rainmaker. Swole kicked out of that, but she didn’t kick out of the second running knee, as Shida picked up the win.
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Starting this week we are getting quick 30-second post-match backstage promos with the winners.
Shida cut a promo and said she came here to show Japanese style and is really happy to be able to do so. She was asked about the Riho-Emi Sakura Women’s Championship match at Full Gear tomorrow night and she picked Sakura to win after stating that it was a hard choice.
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Nyla Rose & Leva Bates defeated Shazza McKenzie & Shalandra Royal in what was essentially a two-on-one handicap match
Whatever you think of the man, it was a huge step down when Arn Anderson was replaced by Chuck Taylor. Bates was really happy to have Rose as a partner and we didn’t have Peter Avalon in their corner. Excalibur said Rose wanted this to be a two-on-one handicap match. AEW management wouldn’t allow it, so she was assigned a partner.
McKenzie threw a leg kick that Rose no sold and then got run over. Royal tried and fared no better, as she ran into Rose’s foot. Bate reached for a tag, but Rose ignored her.
The babyfaces teamed up for a double suplex, but it didn’t work. Bates went for a blind tag, but Rose glared her down, so Bates channeled The Nutty Professor and chanted “Hercules.” It did lead to 10 seconds of babyface offense, but they got cut off again.
Taylor asked if you could be disqualified for not leaving the ring on a 10 count if you’re getting your butt kicked. Actually on WWF Raw for the Sega Genesis, back in 1994, you could be counted out if you were being beaten up outside the ring, even if there was nothing you could do. It did lead to many arguments at the Witner house over “not allowing the other one to get back in the ring.”
Back to the match, this was an extended squash. Rose even threw Royal into Bates when Bates tried again for a tag. Rose laid Royal and McKenzie out with a double Death Valley Driver, stacked them up on top of each other, and pinned them both after a Swanton Bomb. Bates had given up by this point and was reading her book.
So, Bates gets her first win in a match she did nothing in.
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Alex Marvez asked Rose why she didn’t tag out. Rose told him she didn’t have to. She eliminated 10 people in the Casino Battle Royale and gets no respect from the company because none of that was included in her record. Why didn’t she tag out? “Because I’m Nyla Rose, the Native Beast,” Rose said.
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We were magically whisked away to the AEW Control Center, where Tony Schiavone and Dasha Gonzalez previewed Full Gear. Gonzalez was magically wearing the clothes she wore for last week’s Dark, which seems to indicate this is last week’s Control Center, just with a quick voiceover including the Tag Team title match.
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We got a video package for the Chris Jericho-Cody AEW World Championship match at Full Gear.
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We didn’t get a new edition of From Undesirable to Undeniable, which made me sad.
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AEW Tag Team Champions SoCal Uncensored (Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian) & CIMA defeated TH2 (Angelico & Jack Evans) & Kip Sabian
AEW has a reputation of having a bunch of new young wrestlers, but the person with the least experience in this main event was Sabian, who just passed nine years in the ring.
Speaking of Sabian, him thumbing Sky in the eye (followed by an Evans pump kick) is how the heels got the heat. CIMA got the hot tag and ran wild on all three, hitting dropkicks on everyone. He countered a springboard move with a dropkick as well. CIMA slammed all three of his opponents on top of each other and hit a springboard knee to Evans, who was on top.
This match did a better job than most in enforcing the rules of tag team wrestling. There were a couple blips on the radar, but nothing as blatantly awful as usual. SCU hit the S-C-U-later on Sabian and CIMA finished him off with the meteora. They briefly turned up the lights in the building, which was definitely a weird look.
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The show abruptly went off the air after a commercial for Full Gear tomorrow night.
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Final Thoughts —
This definitely had the vibe of a last-minute show. With that said, it was still better than both the Pittsburgh and Charleston episodes. Enjoy Full Gear tomorrow night!