It’s Sunday, you know what that means. Yes, it’s AEW Roundup day and this week has been absolutely brilliant. Couple of things before we start, if you’re in the UK or anywhere else in the world that may celebrate Mother’s Day today, then happy Mother’s Day. And before we get started, I have an announcement to make!

If you haven’t already noticed, I’m a huge AEW Dark Mark and AEW Dark: Elevation starts on Monday! With that in mind, Amy, Andy and I have been talking and as of next week I’ll be splitting the Roundup – Mid week you’ll be getting the Developmental Roundup, going over the events of Dark and Elevation, then on Sunday you’ll be getting the news and main roster Roundup, which will include the new TNT show when it starts!! Elevation is shaping up to have a really awesome card for it’s debut show, with Jungle Boy and Danny Limelight being the first ever filmed Elevation match and the amazing Maki Itoh vs Riho for main event, along with an amazing rest of the card – excited doesn’t quite cut it. Unsurprisingly, Elevation has dominated the AEW News this week, but it was announced that next week’s episode of Dynamite is the St Patrick’s day Smash and WE GET TO SEE EDDIE KINGSTON AND MOX TAG AND THUNDER ROSA AND BRITT BAKER ARE MAIN EVENTING!!!!!!!

The one bit of non show related news I have seen though is this – they’re kickstarting a Tony Schiavone Graphic Novel called Butts in Seats!! The kickstarter has been uploaded but is yet to go live, if you click the button on the page, you’ll be notified when the kickstarter launches on Tuesday 16th – just take my money already though Tony, there’s no way I’m missing out on this one.

BTE was hilarious as always, with Brandon Cutler suffering some… minor difficulties due to the Good Brothers (I can only hope you can figure out what, because there’s no way I’m typing it out here) and on Sammy’s Vlog, he attempted, and failed to defend the BTE Title, so #AndNew BTE Champion is…. Pam!!! We also got the set up for the wonder that was Fuego vs QT on Dark with an absolutely amazing promo’s from Fuego and QT, which put the cherry on top of the cake which has been the build for this match.

On AEW Unrestricted this week, we got a wonderful interview with the world’s only Fallen Angel, Christopher Daniels, with a heck of a lot more comic book talk than I ever expected to hear come out of CD’s mouth. Once again, Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone knocked it out the park with another absolutely brilliant interview, hats off to the both of them for managing to pull off such amazing interviews week after week.

But without further ado, let’s get down to some wrestling!

Highlights of the Week

DARK:

Dark this week was absolutely fantastic, with some absolutely fire matches. It came in at just over an hour and a half long with 11 matches on the card. I wish I could talk about all of them here, but I set myself this silly article structure that I’m loath to break too often, so I’m gonna do my best here! Don’t pay attention to the numbers too much, I loved all of this show!

5) Aaron Solow, Brick Aldridge & Dean Alexander vs The Pretty Picture and Ryan Nemeth

So Peter Avalon and Cezar Bononi now have their own tag team name and will from here on out be known as The Pretty Picture. In my opinion, this tag team just shouldn’t work, but somehow it really does. I can only imagine that after the CrossRoads media call and the announcement that we may be getting a Trio’s tournament this year that this is why we’re getting so many trios matches at the moment and I absolutely love it. Nemeth and TPP are annoyingly fantastic together, and TPP’s ring entrance is just… genius. Solow looked brilliant as always and Aldridge and Alexander completed the trio perfectly, they’ve got potential as a tag trio and I hope we see more of them leading up to the possible trio’s tournament.

4) Azriel and Danny Limelight vs SCU

I was really excited to see this match, especially with Limelight having his match against Jungle Boy on Elevation, and he looked like a star. We’ve seen him stand toe to toe with Fenix, we’ve seen him stand tall with Matt Sydal, and his Jungle Boy match is going to be phenomenal. The match lived up to expectation, and was a heck of a lot of fun to watch, both of these guys compliment each other’s styles so well and their chemistry in the ring was great. I’m loving seeing Azriel in more singles matches as well, most of what we’ve seen of him so far has been in tag action and I’m happy to see him spread his wings on Dark a little – seriously hope to see more of him in the future.

3) Sonny Kiss & Joey Janela vs Santana and Ortiz

Sonny Kiss is an absolute star. This was pretty much a handicap match after pre-match shenanigans took Janela out of action for the vast majority of the match, and even in absolute domination at the hands of Santana and Ortiz they looked absolutely fantastic and dealt with a heck of a beating. Joey did make a last minute return to the ring and went wild, but Santana and Ortiz unsurprisingly walked away with the win. I hope this is the start of a nice push for Janela and Kiss, they are so brilliant and we all want to see more of them on our screens.

2) Lee Johnson vs Baron Black

If it wasn’t for Fuego and QT, this easily would have been match of the night as Big Shotty Lee and Baron Black tore the house down and both of them clearly loved every single second of it and social media went absolutely crazy for this match too. Baron Black also has a great match coming up on Elevation on monday, so much like Limelight’s spotlight on this week’s Dark, this was a great pre-curser to the debut show. Johnson is somehow still getting better, match after match after match and the same goes for Baron Black – he doesn’t get as much love as the other regular unsigned talent we see on Dark, but he really should. His talent, power, and charisma is amazing to see in singles and tag action, the sky really is the limit for a heck of a lot of these guys, and Dark is elevating (ha, get it?) them to the next level.

1) Fuego Del Sol vs QT Marshall

Fuego Del Freaking Sol! He actually hit the Tornado DDT and it was glorious, and if the performance he and QT put out isn’t enough to get this guy a contract I don’t know what will. The thing I love about matches like this is just how much each person puts the other over. QT sold that Tornado DDT like a dream, Fuego managed to counter out of the first Diamond Cutter with a handstand and you can only imagine how QT dealt with that. The match was fire, and these two absolutely tore it up. I honestly can’t gush about this match enough, you need to go watch it, even if it’s the only thing from Dark you watch this week. This QT heel turn they’ve been building is going to be amazing and this was, I think, another nail in the Baby Face QT Coffin.

Dynamite:

AAAH! How is every episode of Dynamite the best episode of Dynamite?! After the botch end to Revolution, this was exactly what we needed. We had a stacked card of matches, but for me this wednesday was all about the promo’s and non wrestling segments. The story telling, stepping onto the Road to Double or Nothing, commentary, the audience, everything about this show was absolutely perfect, so please, pay even less attention to numbers here.

5) Penta, Alex, and Cody

Dressed up Luchador is possibly my new favourite aesthetic, and that is all because of just how fly Penta looked in his burgundy suit jacket during this segment, which I could never have predicted in a million years – the Prince of Pro wrestling may have just met his match with the Lord of Luchador and with Alex Aberhantes at his side, a Penta singles feud with Cody in the lead up to Cody and Brandi having their little girl is just what I never knew I needed to see and it will be glorious. Alex translated for Penta for most of this segment and the smarmy manager who revels in translating the threats and promises just works and I’m all for it. 

I love the Lucha Bros as a tag team, but tonight just cemented in my head that I do actually prefer them as singles wrestlers.

4) Matt Jackson vs Rey Fenix

And Matt vs Fenix was all part of this. These two completely blew my mind and both of them looked absolutely fantastic. This was Matt’s first singles match since episode 200 of BTE, with his last ‘official’ match being a Ring of Honour match a few years ago, so it’s been a while, but other than the fact he didn’t win the match, you could never tell. This match was flawless, spot after spot played out as smoothly and perfectly as you could have hoped and the chemistry between these two was palpable. 

3) Scorpio Sky vs Darby Allin

Sky vs Darby in the Face of the Revolution TNT Title match was just as impressive and seems to have been the final straw for Sky, who after losing to an inside cradle from Darby after an absolutely brutal match, he caught Darby in an ankle lock, which he had been working over throughout the match. Darby tried tapping, it didn’t work, he tried to get away, it didn’t work, and the more he struggled, the more tension Sky put on his ankle. The sick smile of satisfaction on Sky’s face as most of the Ref team had to drag him off Darby was glorious and I cannot wait to see Heel-Sky in full swing.

2) Inner Circle War Council

Did anyone actually see this coming? I’ve been fantasy booking this moment since Dynamite started and never in a million years could I have predicted that this would be how it played out. I was shocked when I realised this was going to be main event rather than Allin and Sky, but with how this show ended, I’m not even mad. 

🦍🐎🐎🐎🐐🐎

Warldow, MJF, Dax, Cash, and Shawn Spears with Tully

Vs 

Santana, Ortiz, Jericho, Sammy and Hager

Blood and Guts anyone?

1) Eddie, Mox, Callis, Omega and Christian

I said earlier that this show was exactly what we needed after the end to Revolution, and these five men are to thank for that. Over the course of two promo segments, one recorded by Mox and Kingston, the other in ring with Callis, Omega, Kingston, Chrstian and the Good Brothers. Eddie’s selling after the botched explosion? That was a panic attack, and extremely well played by AEW. The words ‘sixty-nine me Don’ actually came out of Omega’s mouth, and we have Christian possibly going for a title run, as well as Kingston and Mox vs The Good Brothers at St Patrick’s Day Smash next week? It was absolute perfection. 

Thank you AEW.