The Ins And Outs Of AEW Dark 11/19/19: Tag Team Tuesday

Previously on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dark: Hikaru Shida faced Big Swole, and Nyla Rose fought a Tag Team match all by herself.

If you’d like to keep up with our ongoing coverage of AEW’s YouTube series that showcases the dark matches from the previous week’s Dynamite, you can follow the tag here. You should also be keeping up Brandon Stroud’s Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite for recaps of AEW’s flagship show.

First of all, you can watch AEW Dark here:

And now let’s talk about the Ins and Outs of AEW Dark for November 19, 2019:

I know not everyone will agree, but I really enjoyed Dustin Rhodes on commentary. He was consistently funny and offbeat, and seemed genuinely excited whenever good wrestling was happening. I particularly liked his reaction to the best friends. Dustin talked about how great Trent is, and how he’s watched him grow as a wrestler for the past decade, and then seemed not to know Chuck Taylor at all. I first thought he might be joking around, but a friend pointed out to me that a decade ago Trent was in WWE, where he was even part of a tag team feud with Goldust. Chucky T, on the other hand, has never worked for WWE, so it’s entirely likely that Dustin has kept up with Trent’s career and never paid any attention to Chuck. It’s still funny.

Excalibur also has a chance to teach Dustin the difference between an enzuigiri and a gamengiri. “It’s always an enzuigiri to me,” says Rhodes.

This was a nice long match, in which two great tag teams got to remind us what they can do. Private Party continue to exhibit boundless potential, and I look forward to their eventual Tag Team Championship reign. But I think it can be easy to overlook the real prowess of the Best Friends, two veteran wrestlers who are best known for being silly, but are also amazing wrestlers. Three, actually, because that describes Orange Cassidy too, although it usually takes that much more effort to get him to show you how good he really is.

This match didn’t really mean anything, of course, except in the sense that every sanctioned match matters in AEW, because they’re constantly calculating those rankings that I don’t pay much attention to. I was surprised that the Best Friends won, but Private Party came out looking pretty good, and I like seeing the Best Friends put over as guys who know what they’re doing, so I think it’s fine. Plus Orange Cassidy got to do stuff. I’m always here for that.

Kris Statlander rules, and I really hope they sign her. I have to believe they’re at least thinking about it, or she wouldn’t be here, and certainly wouldn’t be getting in as much offense as she does in this match. Then there’s Big Swole, who’s on her third straight AEW Dark appearance and who Excalibur refers to as a new signee, but there’s never been an official announcement that she’s signed. I really want her to be, I’m just trying not to get my hopes up until she at least confirms it on Twitter.

Of course, Big Swole and Kris still have to job to AEW Women’s Champion Riho and AEW’s Biggest Female Star For Some Reason Britt Baker. Adding insult to injury (or maybe injury to insult) jobbing to Britt means letting her stick her hand in your actual mouth. I mean, I suppose the Women’s Champion could have gotten the pin or the tap instead, but that would have robbed us of the chance to see Britt stick her hand in somebody’s mouth, which AEW seems to be pretty sure is something we’re all into.

Look, I liked this match, and I don’t even really dislike Britt Baker. I just think she seems more and more like a midcarder who’s been put higher on the card than she’s ready for. Big Swole, Statlander, and Riho all excite me in the ring more than Britt does, and I could name at least five or six more women in AEW for whom that’s true. Maybe just give Britt some time to train and perform root canals, and push somebody else for a bit. Somebody like Big Swole, ideally.

And no, I don’t know what’s going on with that arm there. I guess she has to gather the right amount of cosmic energy into her hand before she can hit the Lockjaw.

Nothing against Justin Roberts, but there are literally 20 or more people I’d rather see featured in Cody’s weekly interview than the ring announcer, no matter how good a ring announcer he is. Sometimes I just want to yell at Cody “Put over your wrestlers!” I sort of feel like Roberts only got this spot because he has a story about how Being The Elite attracted him back wrestling after a hiatus. I can’t imagine why Cody might find that particularly moving.

This match between the Young Books and #StrongHearts features Lindaman teaming with T-Hawk in the absence of CIMA. If you don’t remember Lindaman, he’s the naked blond man. I mean yes, obviously he does wear trunks, but they’re really small. He also wears shitty little Roddy Strong boots, and no pads of any kind, so the impression he gives off is that of a very well built man with no clothes on to speak of. It’s just a lot, to be honest.

#Stronghearts look strong in this match, but ultimately the Young Bucks needed a win back, and this is a good one for them. Never mind the fact that Lindaman looks super-naked when the Meltzer Driver is being done to him. The important thing is that they did it to him, at the climax of a fast-paced and exciting four-man match in which three men were wearing pants.

That’s all for this week, join me next time for more wrestling too elite for TV, including another Big Swole match!