All Elite Wrestling will be launching a new digital series called “AEW Dark” featuring matches taped before and after the weekly Dynamite series on TNT.
Cody announced the launch of the series, which debuts this Tuesday on the All Elite Wrestling YouTube channel.
The first episode, hosted by Tony Schiavone, will include the following matches taped at the Capital One Center in Washington, D.C. this past Wednesday:
*Darby Allin vs. CIMA
*Private Party & Best Friends vs. Pentagon Jr., Rey Fenix, Jack Evans & Angelico
*Dr. Britt Baker & Allie vs. Penelope Ford & Bea Priestley
*Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky vs. Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt
The AEW Dynamite series goes to Boston, Massachusetts this Wednesday at the Agganis Arena and have announced the following matches for the TNT broadcast:
*Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Dustin Rhodes & Hangman Page
*Jon Moxley vs. Shawn Spears
*The Young Bucks vs. Private Party in the opening round of the AEW tag title tournament
It’s a good idea. Wrestlers that aren’t featured on the main show can still use their time to get some exposure. They can also just throw their joke wrestlers that no one will take seriously on there like Orange Cassidy, Sunny Kiss, etc. and if people want to see that sort of thing then AEW Dark has them covered.
Man. That is incredibly smart. A fantastic way to use the extra time at an event to create more content and a very intriguing way of making them available. It’s something 205 Live could have been if it was actually taped pre Smackdown to liven up the crowds like the cruiser weights used to do. I’m sure wwe will be doing something similar!
Omega is not on the upcoming card. It will be interesting to see if we get a Kenny tag match on the Dark series.
Can somebody also explain the Hangman / Dustin pairing? Surely it’s to set up Cody as Dustin’s real partner when there is some kinda of injury angle with Hangman. Hangman wasn’t even in the scirmish last week
Only 15 minutes into the live premier on Youtube, and already I realize this show likely will be the one I search out weekly. The announcing is so much better than Raw/Smackdown (which are unbearable to me), and the dark matches are full of fun.
Enjoyed the first episode.
I am sure as the week’s go by, they’ll be making changes to the look of the show (ie; I assume signage and lower thirds representing “Dark” rather than Dynamite).
I also like the fact that so far - everything AEW has done has been aired. And they only exist as a touring TV show. No throw away house shows, etc. So because of that Dark feels just as important to follow.
The win/loss record is good for the company and the wrestlers, because it makes even the dark matches mean something, so fans are more likely to stick around.
Light and easy ancillary viewing. I like the idea of it being not absolutely essential, but a handy enough way of underscoring existing feuds. Given the amount of tags, I wonder if it’ll end up being somewhat analogous to the mixed tag matches which flesh out NJPW undercards.
That was very well produced and will give the announce team good reps with some of the talent they aren’t used to calling. What will be interesting is if Kenny is on Dark this week as he isn’t advertised for a TV match.
I watched this at the gym today and it looks like it had over 400k views which is decent for YouTube within 24 hours I’d think.
