AEW Dark Elevation recap (Nov. 1, 2021): Give the people what they want!

Episode 35 of AEW Dark: Elevation is in the books! If you missed the live broadcast click here for the Cageside Seats stream. Let’s go over what went down on Elevation this week. The announce team was Mark Henry, Paul Wight and Tony Schiavone.

Nyla Rose & Emi Sakura (w/ Vickie Guerrero & Lulu Pencil) vs. Kris Statlander & Ryo Mizunami

Rose & Sakura were 21-5 and 8-2 respectively in singles competition for 2021 and entered first for this match. Mizunami and Statlander were 11-3 and 23-3 respectively. Mizunami and Sakura decided to start the match and immediately traded chops back and forth. Sakura got the better of her and went right to the bow & arrow. Mizunami countered the next move into a high back body drop and this time she got the better of the chops before tagging Statlander in. Statlander and Mizunami did a little comedy double teaming before Sakura planted Statlander on her face and tagged in Rose. Rose played the role of the immovable object and let Statlander pinball right off her before tagging Sakura back in. She slapped Lulu Pencil around and tagged Rose back in. Statlander took her down with a crossbody and tagged Mizunami in. Mizunami hit Rose with an exploder suplex but Sakura ran in to break up the pin. Rose went top rope for a senton splash on Mizunami to get the pin. A very solid opener for this week’s Elevation.

Kazarian vs. Viktor Benjamin

“The Elite Hunter” Frankie Kazarian had a singles record of 30-6 before this match began. Viktor Benjamin was already waiting for him in the ring, “making his AEW debut” so like Wednesday nights you know what that means. Here’s an interesting fact about Benjamin that no one on commentary mentioned though — he’s married to Lady Frost. Kazarian took him off his feet with a dropkick and knocked him loopy, then took him down with a lariat before applying the crossface chicken wing. Kazarian made it look easy but that wasn’t a surprise. The surprising fact is that somebody hasn’t put Frost and Benjamin on AEW programming as an intergender tag team. I’d love to see it.

Riho vs. Kayla Sparks

Riho came out first sporting a singles record of 6-2 so far in 2021. Sparks was waiting for her in the ring with a record of 0-1 to date in AEW. As a side note these Dark shows look and sound better when they’re not taped at Universal Studios. Hearing the crowd of enthusiastic fans cheering for Riho in Boston really added to this match. Riho hit a 6-1-9 and a coup de gras before finishing Sparks with a bridging fisherwoman suplex. This was a total squash.

FTR (w/ Tully Blanchard) vs. Waves & Curls (Jaylen Brandyn & Traevon Jordan)

FTR’s record to date is 25-3 and they are the current AAA Lucha Libre tag team champions, making sure to open their jackets and show off the belts around their waists before walking down to the ring. Waves & Curls came in with a 0-2 record, and Paul Wight made sure to point out “Traevon (Jordan) is the taller of the two.” That didn’t make one bit of difference to their chances. Brandyn took a beating from both members of FTR until he crawled to Jordan for the hot tag. FTR pretended to be knocked out when he came in and the moment he tried one move they hit him with the Big Rig for the pin. Mark Henry was amused!

Tay Conti vs. Little Mean Kathleen (LMK)

Conti’s singles record in 2021 was 35-5 and she’s got a title shot coming up as a result against Dr. Britt Baker at Full Gear on November 13th. LMK was waiting for her in the ring to make her AEW debut and given Conti’s heading to a title shot, this was a foregone conclusion, scripted or otherwise. Conti no sold her offense, hit three pump kicks, did the D-D-Tay and pinned her. The most dominant one-sided win of the entire show.

Chuck Taylor, Wheeler Yuta & Orange Cassidy vs. The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) & Serpentico

The Best Friends brought a trios record of 6-1 to the ring for the main event. Max Caster rapped his trio to the ring, with Serpentico 12-51 in singles competition and The Acclaimed sporting a 25-6 record as a team. “Orange Cassidy will get his head rocked. You’re about to get eliminated like the Red Sox.” Paul Wight: “He doesn’t want to get out of the building alive!” No shit. That’s a dangerous thing to say in Boston. Orange Cassidy took the mic. “Yo. Yo. Okay, listen.” He then hit Anthony Bowens with his shin kicks, avoided the receipt, kipped up to his feet and said “Word to your mother.” The match was officially under way!

Chuck Taylor ran over The Acclaimed with lariats and dropped Serpentico on both of them. Cassidy blind tagged in and fell on Serpentico with a half asleep mic drop. Bowens got taken off his feet with a cross body, Caster interfered from the outside to stop the Orange Punch, and we got a bit of a cluster in the ring before Serpentico ran wild with kicks. Serpentico’s efforts only led to him being the one to eat the Orange Punch for the pin. Kris Statlander came down to the ring so the Best Friends could give the people in Boston the group hug they wanted to see and Elevation went off the air!

What to watch/skip

Tonight’s “what to watch/skip” is brought to you by EPMD’s “Give the People.” Honestly it’s what I think of every time the Best Friends hug on television and commentary says “Give the people what they want!” If you skip anything this week, skip Tay Conti’s match, because you could blink and miss it anyway. On the other hand though, the entire show was one-sided victories other than the opener and the main event, so theoretically you could take a pass on everything but the bookends. Since this show is only a half hour and change, I don’t see that much reason to skip them. You could watch this whole show on your phone while waiting for a table at a steakhouse. If it was poorly produced or badly executed that wouldn’t be a good use of your time, but AEW is (for the most part) slicker than axle grease.

Cageside commentary crew! Elevation is calling (ring ring ring, ha ha hey) so pick up that phone and answer it in our comments section. If you want to hit me back on social media I welcome feedback there too. See you tomorrow night for another AEW Dark!