AEW Dark- 1/5/2021 Review (Women Matches)

 By Mark Rodriguez

Let's take a look at the latest episode of AEW Dark. It looks like we're gonna be seeing Tay Conti and Anna Jay in action, that's always cool. As for Hikaru Shida VS Abadon, it seems Shida retained and is still the AEW Women's Champ.

Match 1- Tay Conti (with Anna Jay) VS Marti Daniels

Tay would go for a quick roll up pin. She's hold onto Marti's wrist and slam her with three shoulder tosses in a row and also a hip toss, all while still holding onto her. Tay finishes this with a deadly kick across the chest. Marti grabs Tay and slams her down. She tries to hit her with a high kick but gets leg caught on the ropes, which Tay uses as a chance to kick her in the knee. Tay grabs Marti's leg and hangs herself off it, locking it into a knee bar. 

With the ref breaking the knee bar with a 5 count, Marti gets in Tay's face and smacks her. Tay returns with multiple fore-arms to the face. Marti runs at her and ducks under Tay's swing, but then Tay clubs her on the back of the head with a clothesline. Marti would run into her again and Tay would flip her on her back with a suplex variation. Tay would sit on the turnbuckle and then leap off it as Marti would run at her, crashing with the ringpost. Tay lands with a roll and hits Marti with a flying knee strike to the face.

Tay picks up the dazed Marti and drops her face on her knee, knocking her out with the Tay-KO. Tay Conti wins the match. 

Match 2- Red Velvet VS Leva Bates

Both women go into a grapple and Velvet tosses Leva down with a firewoman's carry and gets her into an armlock. Leva reserves and tries to get her into an arm lock, but Velvet regains control of her arm. Leva goes for a pin and Velvet just slide right out from under her. Leva grabs onto Velvet's arm again and slams her down, going for a pin without success. Leva goes for a Northern Lights Suplex but Velvet gets out before she could get pinned. The Librarian lands a shoulder tackle on Velvet, which her answers with a split kick to the face. 

With Leva up on the ropes, Velvet hits her with a running body splash. She then shoved her boot up against the Librarian's neck. Velvet runs at her again but this time Leva gets the hell out of the way and Velvet hits the ringpost. Leva kicks her feet out from under her, and with her opponent down, she climbs on the ropes and swings her knees into Velvet's face. The Librarian goes for a kick, which Velvet catches. She tries to counter with her own kick which Leva catches, and then slams her down into a split position. Velvet taunts since she has no problem doing the splits at any time and Leva kicks her in the face.

Velvet kicks Leva in the breadbasket and then does a leaping kick across the back so send her down. She goes for the pin but Leva still kicks out. Leva manages to pick her up in a firewoman's carry but wasted too much time. Velvet slips out of her grasp and slams her facefirst with a Russian Legsweep. As Leva tries to get up, Velvet hits her with a running kick to the side of the face and knocks her out. Red Velvet wins the match. 

Match 3- Anna '99' Jay VS Alex Garcia

We start with Gracia flipping Anna Jay with an arm drag. Both women try to pin each other, Anna manages to arm drag Gracia this time. Gracia runs towards the ringpost and Anna manages to get out of the way. Anna Jay does a little spin and clocks Gracia in the mouth with a kick. Anna clotheslines Gracia twice and then kicks her down. With Alex in a sitting position, Number 99 of the Dark Order grabs her for a swinging neckbreaker. Anna Jay delivers a Jay Kick to the face, knocking Alex out. 

Alex manages to get up against the ropes and Anna rolls towards her and lands another kick to the face. Alex managed to finally kick Anna Jay away from her, but when she runs towards her, Number 99 grabs her in the Queen Slayer. Alex quickly taps out and Anna Jay is the winner.

Match 4- Serena Deeb (NWA Champion) VS Tesha Price

As both women go to grapple, Serena gets behind Tesha and trips her down, getting her into a front headlock. Serena grabs her in a headlock and Tesha tries to flip her shoulders to the mat, which would count as a pin. Tesha finally breaks out of the headlock but eats three uppercuts from the NWA Champion. As Tesha runs at her, Serena trips her down and grabs her in a submission move, immobilizing all four of her limbs. Tesha tries to turn this into a pin, which makes Serena let her go.

Serena tries to grab her arm and leg for another submission move but Tesha grabs onto the ropes to break whatever move she was attempting. Tesha manages to sock Serena in the face and then shoulder tackle her down. Tesha gets on her and delivers two right hooks to the face and goes for the pin, but the NWA Champ kicks out. Serena grabs onto Tesha and delivers a swinging neckbreaker, but doesn't let go, allowing her to deliver a second swinging neckbreaker. She then hits Tesha with a Snap Suplex. 

The NWA Champ sits Tesha on the turnbuckle and then bends her back into another submission hold. Even after letting her go, Tesha is stuck upside down on the ropes until she finally manages to free herself and fall onto the mat. Tesha grabs her with the Detox slam and scores the win. 

Serena Deeb is set to the defend her NWA title against Tay Conti the following night on Dynamite.

My Opinions-

The first match was aight, it was more of a showcase for Tay Conti, so we didn't get to see much of what the newcomer Marti Daniels can do. There was a part where Marti ducked under Tay's swing and just stood there, so I don't know if that was a missed cue or if Tay was supposed to clothesline her and then quickly made up for it and just clotheslined her from behind anyway. It's always cool to see Tay in action, love her new gear, though it's gonna take me a while to get used to her Tai-KO. I don't know, the way she grabs the opponent in a reverse rack position, I was expecting some kind of slam or something other than swinging the opponent into her knee. It's original, but weird.

Second match was alright, it's actually rare to see Leva in a match. Her moves are pretty basic, unless she's really bringing the 'this is how a librarian would wrestler if she had to' gimmick home. Red Velvet was alright. It'll take a while to get used to her little pot stirring motion, but hey, she came 'Straight from Yo Momma's Kitchen'. I'm assuming the kicks across the back was her finisher since she did the pot stir motion before landing it. I'm surprised they had Leva kick out of it only for her to go down with a regular kick to the face. Decent match and like Red Velvet's energy.

The third match was pretty quick. Even though Alex Gracia earned a win last week, she couldn't do too much against those super deadly kicks that Anna Jay keeps dishing out. Anna Jay continues to show dominance. 

The last match was a pretty good Serena Deeb showcase as she shows she's full of all sorts of deadly submission moves that come outta nowhere. While I heard she managed to retain the title the following night, I know Tay Conti gave it her all. She might have some deadly kicks but she is not stranger to submission moves. I can tell the match between those two had to have been pretty intense. I'll have to catch the rerun on the ol' TNT app. 

The real question here is, since Tay Conti seems to be her bestie, is she also wearing a Brodie Lee shirt to pay her respects, or will Ana Jay also bring her into the Dark Order? I'm actually still curious what they're gonna do in terms of a new leader for the Dark Order now that we've had some time to grieve the loss of the late Brodie Lee.