AEW Dark Elevation recap (Aug. 23, 2021): Death becomes your Triangle

Episode 25 of AEW Dark: Elevation is in the books! If you missed the live broadcast click here for the Cageside Seats stream. Let’s talk about what went down on Elevation this week, because there’s absolutely nothing else to discuss in the world of professional wrestling right now. It’s not like anything unexpected happened over the last three days, right? Alright enough kidding around. Our announce team was Paul Wight, Tony Schiavone and Eddie “Chaos” Kingston.

Dante Martin vs. Anthony Bowens

Bowens was again sans Max Caster, and wasted no time mocking Martin for his Top Flight tag team brother not being there. Martin repaid him by mocking The Acclaimed and the heat was on! Bowens cut off Martin’s high flying maneuvers and sent him crashing to the floor, then rammed his left shoulder into the ring post for good measure. Martin punched his way out of a cravate but got driven back down hard. Martin backflipped over Bowens when he charged and got on offense. Double springboard moonsault didn’t get the job done for Martin, nor did the face buster for Bowens, and the crowd woke up at that point. They popped when Martin kicked out of an inverted draping DDT. He followed it up with a move commentary couldn’t decided whether to call a cutter or a stunner, but either way it finished the match. They gave this a lot of time and it got better the longer it went.

Julia Hart and Big Swole followed this by challenging Diamante to find a partner and meet them for a tag team match.

Warren Johnson & Zack Mason vs. Varsity Blonds (w/ Julia Hart)

Commentary made sure to remind us that the Blonds are in the tag team eliminator tournament. Brian Pillman Jr. tried to protect Julia Hart from his opponents and got double teamed on the outside as a result. Eventually Pillman got the hot tag to Garrison. He heat a Stinger splash and a high back body drop before tagging his partner back in to hit Air Pillman. Slightly more than a squash but the result was never in doubt. Afterward Diamante named her partner for the tag match as “The Native Beast” Nyla Rose.

The Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor, and Wheeler Yuta) w/ Kris Statlander vs. The Blade & TH2 (Jack Evans & Angelico) w/ The Bunny

Orange Cassidy’s arrival got the loudest pop of the show to that point. YUTA put Evans in an octopus hold but didn’t finish him, and a brief “Chucky T” chant broke out. Evans hit him with a standing twisting moonsault and didn’t finish him either. Blade tagged in and YUTA became the face-in-peril getting triple teamed as the heels cut off the ring. Cassidy made the lukewarm tag and the crowd went “banana.” Suicide dive to wipe out TH2. Taylor did the same. Yuta got the tag and made the splash on Blade, but he kicked out. TH2 did the double stomp and Blade gave him a piledriver, but Taylor made the save. Cluster in the ring as all six men got involved. Cassidy hit the Orange Punch and Beach Break on Blade when the ring cleared to get the win. Matt Hardy came out to throw a fit about his team’s loss. He’ll go one-on-one with Cassidy on Wednesday night!

Tay Conti vs. Promise Braxton

It’s fun to watch Tay Conti dance and pump up the crowd. It’s not always as much fun to watch her wrestle. Her “already in the ring” opponent was Promise Braxton, with a record of 0-1 in AEW. You know what comes next. Braxton ate an Ace Crusher, forearms to the face, arm drags, kicks to the head, and the D-D-Tay. Longer than the usual Conti squash match and nothing too sloppy this time.

The Dark Order (Alan “5” Angels, Colt Cabana & Evil Uno) vs. Death Triangle (Rey Fenix, Penta El Zero Miedo & PAC)

Andrade El Idolo and his flunkies came out to interrupt before the match even got underway, showing off their tickets to the camera and taking seats at ringside. Kingston got heated about the Hangman Page/Dark Order storyline. “Everybody needs to grow up and do their own thing.” Death Triangle worked over Alan “5” Angels for a long time. Angels fired up when they got distracted by Andrade and Colt Cabana got the hot tag. Uno tagged in for a Swanton on Penta and hit it for a near fall. He ate a double Fear Factor for his trouble and PAC hit the Black Arrow for the pin. Andrade waved a dismissive hand at the finish but I don’t agree with him — this was a very solid finish. The Dark Order ran out from the back to break up a fight between Angels and his partners to end the show.

What to watch

I hate sounding like a broken record but watch the entire show. It’s less than an hour and it doesn’t suck. This episode of Elevation was brought to you by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, and as long as we’re doing throwbacks, August 26th was the 30th anniversary of the SNES launching in North America. Somebody edit the AEW roster into Natsume Championship Wrestling or WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling please.

Cageside commentary crew! Get up off those seats and leave your feedback in the comments section below. See you tomorrow night for AEW Dark!