AEW Dark 1/5/21: Everyone's back to 0-0

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

That was a really great DARK

Great wrestling, Negative One was great, just a great way to start 2021

I can't wait for tomorrow

[Deleted]

La Sicuria are really short or are KiLynn King and Tesha Price really tall?

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Jan 5, 2021 23:17:37 GMT -5 @uppitynerd said:

La Sicuria are really short or are KiLynn King and Tesha Price really tall?

KiLynn is very tall (taller than Nyla, notably), Diamante is shorter than everyone except Leyla Hirsch and Shoko Nakajima, I think.

[Mozenrath]

Jan 5, 2021 23:24:54 GMT -5 Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby said:

Jan 5, 2021 23:17:37 GMT -5 @uppitynerd said:

La Sicuria are really short or are KiLynn King and Tesha Price really tall?

KiLynn is very tall (taller than Nyla, notably), Diamante is shorter than everyone except Leyla Hirsch and Shoko Nakajima, I think.

Yeah, I think Mel is the only one who may be taller than KiLynn. I think Riho might be shorter than Diamante, too, or tied.

[Chiral]

I'm gonna have to watch this whole ep again just to find the part where Taz and Excalibur start alliterating.

[Mozenrath]

Jan 6, 2021 3:18:56 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I'm gonna have to watch this whole ep again just to find the part where Taz and Excalibur start alliterating.

They do it in the Bear Country match, plus the Peter Avalon match a bit I think. Taz did it in the 5 vs Serpentico match when they spilled out into Peter Avalon's heart bed, for sure, when he was stumbling on Peter's name.

[lucas_lee]

I love the episode but in the Acclaimed match why did Caster make the pin? Bowens was the legal man?

[lucas_lee]

Jan 5, 2021 19:09:03 GMT -5 Peeetah said:

A billionaire randomly wanting to buy the rights to your song must be a decent Christmas surprise, hope the artist got paid and not some f***ing record company.

I do think that the OG members of Baltimore has passed away but Im not sure

[Deleted]

"CUT THE MUSIC!" had me howling, goddamn.

[Peeetah]

Jan 6, 2021 9:09:54 GMT -5 lucas_lee said:

Jan 5, 2021 19:09:03 GMT -5 Peeetah said:

A billionaire randomly wanting to buy the rights to your song must be a decent Christmas surprise, hope the artist got paid and not some f***ing record company.

I do think that the OG members of Baltimore has passed away but Im not sure

Ah man that's a shame.

[lucas_lee]

Jan 6, 2021 10:06:58 GMT -5 Peeetah said:

Jan 6, 2021 9:09:54 GMT -5 lucas_lee said:

I do think that the OG members of Baltimore has passed away but Im not sure

Ah man that's a shame.

The "lead singer" if the band also didn't sing that song. Its unknown who the real singer of their songs was (most attribute it to the bassist). I know he wanted to sing songs on his own but Baltimora vetoed him and I think he quit, later dying of HIV. Im sure I skipped over more of his life but thags the cliff notes version

[Deleted]

Vox put a on a really good show last night. AEW should pick up the Sea Stars if Impact doesn’t.

[Zone Was Wrong]

So as a heads up everyone, not sure how long this has been like this (if at all) but it looks like they tag sections Dark with what match is on. Makes it a bit easier to digest for people who don't want to watch all 2 1/2 hours of it.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Jan 6, 2021 18:41:09 GMT -5 Zone Was Wrong said:

So as a heads up everyone, not sure how long this has been like this (if at all) but it looks like they tag sections Dark with what match is on. Makes it a bit easier to digest for people who don't want to watch all 2 1/2 hours of it.

They've done that before, then stopped, so it's weird that they did it again (albeit welcome).

[thegatewaydrug]

I cannot wait for the Taz and Excalibur podcast. Better yet- a buddy cop comedy!

It's Chemistry Jones between those two every match.

[Zone Was Wrong]

Jan 9, 2021 0:38:14 GMT -5 thegatewaydrug said:

I cannot wait for the Taz and Excalibur podcast. Better yet- a buddy cop comedy!

It's Chemistry Jones between those two every match.

I can't get enough of those two trying to make the other break down. There are so many times you can tell they are laughing their asses off at something the other said.

[Hurbster]

Got time to watch it now (watched a few of the individual matches on YouTube), damn Nick Comoroto is a unit. Didn't like Marko kicking him out of the ring though.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Weekly view count as of Sunday afternoon!

-1 confrontation with Marko Stunt 266k
5 vs. Serpentico 32k
Nyla Rose vs. Alex Gracia 26k
Frankie Kazarian vs. Griff Garrison vs. Angelico vs. Darius Martin 23k
Rey Fenix vs. Aaron Solow 21k (NOTE: this match was uploaded twice, the numbers have been added together)
Jungle Boy vs. Nick Comoroto 16k
Sammy Guevara vs. Michael Nakazawa 15k
Fuego del Sol vs. Danny Limelight 14k
Peter Avalon vs. Angel Fashion 12k
Ivelisse & Diamante vs. KiLynn King & Tesha Price 11k
Thunder Rosa vs. Ashley Vox 9.4k
The Acclaimed vs. Lee Johnson & Shawn Dean 7.1k
Shanna vs. Vipress 6.8k
Gunn Club vs. Mike Verna & Bear Country 6k
Matt Sydal vs. Baron Black 4.7k
Louie Valle vs. Brandon Cutler 3.6k

And that is what we call an outlier.

The justifiably massive popularity of the -1/Marko Stunt confrontation is pretty easy to explain - it was advertised on Dynamite, it was a sweet moment, it was something many people wanted to see even before knowing the context of why -1 was at a show, it was just plain good.

5 vs. Serpentico is high-for-a-Dark-match (if not at the Brian Cage level), and it was both very good and featured -1. (Probably fewer people knew it would feature -1, though.)

After that, though, things get interesting. I am fascinated that a barely-a-match squash with a (very good) Vickie Guerrero promo afterward got 26k views over the first weekend - that's kind of ridiculous, and may speak to Alex Gracia being very popular (some of her ROW matches got some completely out-there view counts, some even being outliers for ROW), unless the Vickie promo got some word of mouth that I didn't see. AEW probably sees a lot of upside in Alex Gracia, and she definitely has the presence and look to be a star as she grows in the ring.

I'm a little surprised that the four-way was pretty popular, but that may be a bias in my associations - after all, one-fall four-way matches were dreaded by ROH fans as filler back when ROH was my main promotion. As is, they make for better viewing than most things on Dark, being more unpredictable - filling them with tag team guys working singles is a nice way to distinguish them.

Fenix was about as popular as usual. Jungle Boy vs. Nick Comoroto maybe benefited from the debut of "Tarzan Boy," but it also may have benefited from being Jungle Boy vs. Nick Comoroto. Guevara vs. Nakazawa and Fuego del Sol vs. Danny Limelight were both more popular than I would have assumed, especially since I was a little sad that Fuego came in last place last week. Avalon seems to be doing better than Cutler, interestingly, which may be because his "wrestle the hot guys" gimmick is going over well (and why wouldn't it, there's some great eye candy in his squashes).

Tesha Price and KiLynn King debuting as a tag team did significantly better than I would have expected - I dunno if this was driven by whatever amount of their Twitter followers actually cared more to watch because KiLynn really sold the team on Twitter (her number of followers compared to the number needed to achieve that bump is about small enough that I'd consider it possible), because AEW has telegraphed that they're relatively high on KiLynn and Tesha, or because Ivelisse & Diamante get more attention if they are perceived to be up against a team that could maybe possibly win.

Thunder Rosa vs. Ashley Vox did nowhere near as well as I had hoped. Hopefully AEW realizes that Vox is a great hire regardless.

The lower tier is pretty unsurprising, with Cutler, Shanna, Sydal, and the Gunn Club (who sometimes shoot up significantly) all just turning in their standard squash match performances.

So, in conclusion, -1 has produced likely the most attention-grabbing segment in Dark history.