Tonight I watched Rampage, but my question going in was is it even worth the time? I guarantee you there was more effort put into this review than a Rush match, so lets get going:
If anything the opener for the tag titles made me feel a little sad for AEW's tag division. Now don't get me wrong, I believe AEW has had and still has the best tag division in modern wrestling though WWE's is getting better these days. AEW has a lot of teams that are just floating on though. Private Party were there from near day 1, and they even got jump started by beating the Young Bucks on one of the first Dynamites, but that was nearly three years ago and what have they done since? Similar can be said for the Butcher and the Blade except their introduction was handled way worse as nobody explained who they were. Both of these teams then got bundled into the Hardy then Andrade family office, and neither feels as relevant as they should. Please let me me point out again that I like all of the wrestlers involved in this match, but AEW has dropped the ball with all of them, but that doesn't mean they can't do better in future, and maybe this Acclaimed title run will allow for more of the lower teams to get a shot and more TV time.
The AEW tag titles have sometimes felt a bit too protected, where some champions just feel like they won't lose until it is time and that is the only reason. Like for example when Kenny Omega and Hangman had them, it felt like the belts were on ice until we needed to get the story between Hangman and the Elite going again. I will say that the Acclaimed feel like a more beatable team, and I mean that in a good way. This is only their first title defence, but it feels like they could drop the titles to any other team, which is better than when one team is protected over all others until it feels like the right time for them to lose.
Anyway, sorry for digressing a bit, this match was fine but didn't feel all that special. The Acclaimed won, but Private Party in particular looked good in this, and they kept cutting to Matt Hardy so there is something for them there.
Next we cut to Lexi with the Firm, AEW's latest thrown together group. The Gunn club say some words about FTR while W Morrisey tapes his wrists for seemingly no reason.
Every time I see Lee Moriarty now I think about Bryan Danielson mentioning him as a prospect back at the start of this year. He could have made for an interesting Blackpool Combat Club member, but instead he's here with a bunch of other dudes AEW don't know what to do with. They already have other groups that are together for seemingly no reason, the Factory, the Trustbusters, the winged alsatians. That last one was a joke but if you don't watch AEW Dark you might well have believed me...
Fuego actually looked pretty good on Dark this week, so it was good to see him again. Moriarty wins fairly quickly with a Crossface. I enjoyed the wrestling here but again, this didn't feel important. Post match the former Big Cass chokeslammed Fuego for seemingly no real reason.
Up next might be my highlight of this show and this is going to sound weird but bear with me. Hangman and the Dark order are with Lexi to plug the upcoming World title match Hangman won last week which is happening on the 18th. Andrade and Jose come in and show footage of a miscommunication that got 10 eliminated in that battle royal. Andrade notes that next week will be the anniversary of Brodie Lee's last match, the amazing dog collar match with Cody, and uses that to provoke 10 into a match on Rampage next week, where it will be 10's mask versus Andrade's career on the line.
When I saw Willow vs Allysin Kay at Death Before Dishonor earlier this year I felt like she would be a great addition for the ROH women's division when they get their own show. Thats not me trying to push her onto another brand by the way, but to me the ROH women's division could be used to give wrestlers who aren't stars yet some exposure and experience, and I feel like Willow and Jamie also would fit that. I'd also put Leyla Hirsh there when she is back, I think she is injured right now.
I'm also a fan of Jamie, but they need to get this story with her and Britt Baker moving forward. Why they are still stalling on it is beyond me because it just feels like they need to get a move on at this point. I liked this match too, Willow especially put a shift in. I don't know if she is signed to AEW or ROH but she ought to be.
Up next we get a video about Samoa Joe and Wardlow, two champions who have nothing going on and so I think are now a tag team? Everything I said about the tag titles earlier apply to both Wardlow and Samoa Joe, it just doesn't feel like they have any strong competition, but that could change with time. I've been a fan of Samoa Joe for many years at this point, since his TNA days but is current AEW/ROH run has been disappointing.
Ryan Nemeth is already in the ring talking at 90 miles an hour. He makes a dig about Rocky, which is fine because his gimmick is that he is the Hollywood Hunk and so I like him throwing movie references in. He makes a weird dig at ECW the which I have more of a problem with. Ryan was 16 when ECW closed it's doors so what does he know, but this is all to draw out Hook who destroys him quickly. Did I mention that this all happened very fast? It went by so quick that they didn't even turn Hook's music off and just left it going New Jack style.
As Hook walks up the ramp the Trustbusters leave him an envelope which he takes up the other tunnel. I've ranted about a fair bit so I won't go into this Trustbuster group today it that is coming.
I don't like repeating myself but the main event match between John Silver and Rush was fine but felt pointless. on Wednesday they are doing Hangman vs Rush so I guess this was to give Rush a win going into that, but this didn't matter enough. It was also the longest match on this show and I'd rather have seen the tag title match gone longer than this. Rush won and the AFO continued the attack until Hangman came in and saved his friends, leading to the Hangman vs Rush match on Wednesday.
Maybe I should have started reviewing Rampage last week, because I really enjoyed the Grand Slam edition. This weeks show really hits on the problem with Rampage as a whole. There was nothing bad on this show at all, I enjoyed parts of it a lot, but nothing feels worth the time to watch it, let alone write about it or record and edit a video version. We have a battle of the belts show next week, and those somehow matter even less, not even enough to give it capital letters. Rampage is fine, but that is my problem with it, in this day and age it's not really acceptable to just be fine. I could have given my time to any other hour of wrestling and maybe enjoyed it more. You have to be better than this with stories that matter for this day and age. I'd also like to point out that I pay a monthly subscription on Fite TV to watch this show. I have since the day AEW plus began, but there is so much other wrestling I could be watching for free.
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