AEW Dark Women's Matches- January 25, 2022 (Episode 127)

 By Mark Rodriguez

A good way to relax on a Tuesday night (or any night) is with AEW. Tonight seems to only have 2 women's matches, but one of them will pit the powerhouse Leyla Hirsch against the kickboxer Janai Kai who already put up and impressive showing the night before against Red Velvet.

Match 1- Erica Leigh vs The Bunny w/The Blade

As soon as the bell rings, the Bunny quickly runs over to Erica and starts clobbering her up against the ring post. The ref had to break it up only for The Bunny to run back and start kicking and stomping the hell out of her. The ref had to grab and pull Bunny off her opponent. This time Erica pins Bunny up against the ring posts and delivers some punches of her own but her opponent stops this with a vicious chop across the chest. Bunny grabs a handful of hair and flings Erica across the ring. 

As Erica is lying up against the ropes, Bunny runs at her and hits her with a flying dropkick to her back. Bunny skips around the ring and then plants her knee on the back of Erica's head, shoving her against the ropes. Bunny then rakes her across the back with her nails. As Bunny grabs her opponent, Erica is finally able to land some punches and do some offense, but is cut short as she takes a knee to the stomach. Bunny picks her up but Erica is able to slip from her grasp and get her in a waist lock. However, the Bunny lands a viscous elbow to her face which makes Erica let her go.

Bunny kicks out Erica's knee, dropping her down. She then runs and bounces off the ropes and delivers a powerful Knee Lift that sends Erica flipping to the mat. Bunny picks her up and slams her Down The Rabbit Hole and wins the match. 

Match 2- Janai Kai vs "Legit" Leyla Hirsch

Surprisingly, Janai overs a hand to Leyla, who easily takes this chance to sock her and get the first blow. Leyla hits her with her knee and then gives her a Gut Wrench Suplex. Leyla runs and hits her with a running knee to her face and goes for a pin. Leyla actually pulls Janai up after the 2-count and then gets her into an armbar. Janai taps out immediately. Leyla wins and is set to fight Red Velvet the following night. 

My Opinions-

Wow, this was quite a short showing. The Bunny match was alright, we don't see her do too much too often, so it's cool to see her go nuts and score a win. She got to show her vicious side, that's for sure and I've always loved her finished. Kinda wish we got to see more of what Erica could do however, but hopefully next time.

I was kinda disappointed with the Leyla squash. Janai had shown off to have all sorts of Muay Thai kicks and tricks, it was odd seeing her get taken down so easy. If we go by the story, Leyla has a match with Red Velvet soon. Janai faced both. Janai basically forced Red Velvet to put out all the stops to land a win against her, while Leyla was fairly unimpressed and took her down without much thought. This could spell big trouble for Velvet Wednesday night and I wish the commentary ran with that.

Overall though, still very disappointed. I was expecting more of an actual match between Leyla and Janai. Hopefully we see more of Janai soon. She's such a videogame character. She makes me think if Street Fighter's Adon had a sister, she would be similar to her. 

Hopefully we get better matches next week. If they do this sort of thing again where one show gets 4 matches and the next show only gets 2, I might just combine them into one article.