BRM Reviews the 1/14/2022 Rampage (great)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 1/14/2022 Rampage (great)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 17th, '22, 17:20

TRENT BERETTA (w/Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy, Wheeler YUTA, & Kris Statlander) vs. ADAM COLE (w/the Young Bucks, Brandon Cutler, Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish, & Dr. Britt Baker, DMD)- 7.25/10
This is a singles match and not a Torneo Cibernetico, right? Okay. I got confused with all of the people standing on the outside.
The announcers kept telling us about Trent having a “new attitude” since returning from his injury, but if that’s the case, then I have yet to see it.
Cole and Trent worked over each other’s necks. The announcers kept telling me that this was very dangerous because Trent had just come back from neck surgery, but then Trent just took all of these crazy moves and it felt no different from before his surgery. He wasn’t selling anything extra.
Thankfully, the people on the outside kept out of things… until one spot where Nick Jackson jumped up onto the apron to yell at the referee about Cole’s foot being on the ropes, EVEN THOUGH THE REFEREE HAD ALREADY SEEN IT AND SPOTTED COUNTING! As a result, this felt like it was done specifically so that Chuck Taylor could yank him off the apron, giving the people on the outside an excuse to brawl. It felt like something designed to let these guys get a spot in, not something that happened naturally.
The referee was distracted by the chaos on the outside, which allowed Adam Cole to hit Trent with a low blow to set up the running knee for the win. Adam Cole should not need to cheat to beat Trent.
Quite frankly, this whole match shouldn’t have happened. On commentary, the announcers told us that Dark Order were “red-hot” and “on a ten-match winning streak,” which I’m sure caught pretty much everyone by surprise, as none of those wins happened on TV. Cole, meanwhile, has been wrestling and winning on TV at least once a week. He’s actually the top-ranked male singles wrestler in the company- not that you’d know it listening to the commentary on this match, where it wasn’t brought up at all- and yet he’s not the one who is going out there and talking about the world title. The guys talking about the world title are the (unranked) MJF and CM Punk), and he hasn’t expressed any sort of interest in the TNT Title, either… so it begs the question of why we have spending this time on Adam Cole when it could have been spent giving televised wins to acts like the Dark Order or Daniel Garcia so that when the time comes to give them their title shot and Excalibur claims that they are “red-hot,” it comes across to the viewer as being somewhat close to true rather than seeming ridiculous because every time we see them on TV, they’re always losing?
I don’t need all ten wins to be on TV. I realize that there is only so much TV to go around. But at least but TWO of the ten wins on TV (say, #4 and #9) so that someone who doesn’t have the time to watch six hours of squashes a week (or however long the Dark shows go now) won’t feel like the announcers are full of sh*t when they tell us that some undercard jamoke is actually a worthy top contender to a championship.

MERCEDES MARTINEZ VS. THUNDER ROSA VIDEO PACKAGE- AWESOME!
What is taking so long, Tony? Book the f*cking match already!

ANDREW EVERETT vs. SHAWN SPEARS (w/Wardlow)- squash
Everett appears to have cartoonified his movements since the last time I saw him, so I was quite happy to see Spears squash him.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Shawn Spears cut a promo on CM Punk. It started off okay, but then just kept dragging on and on, and started to feel like what it actually was, which was a delusional C-level name talking trash to an A-level name in the delusional belief that he is an A-level name himself.
There was also a comment in here that could have been read as a shot at Wardlow, but it was sufficiently generic that I don’t think people would realize it unless they were looking for it.

THE ACCLAIMED’S DISS-TRACK AT DARBY AND STING- great!
They did a great job of insulting their opponents and being entertaining enough that this wasn’t boring, but also not being too cool or funny, either. They remembered that they are heels.

KRIS STATLANDER, LEYLA HIRSCH, & RED VELVET vs. PENELOPE FORD, THE BUNNY, & NYLA ROSE (w/Vickie Guerrero)- 4.75/10
Statlander and Hirsch had issues. The finish saw Hirsch tag herself in, leading to an argument, leading to The Bunny shoving Hirsch into Statlander to knock Statlander off the apron and make Hirsch loopy enough to pin with a role-up. This was all good, except for the fact that Hirsch was clearly not holding the tag rope when she made the tag, and if you’re going to do a spot a minute before where you need to distract the referee just to have someone run in and break up a submission, to have the referee ignore someone not holding the tag rope is ridiculous (and if tag ropes aren’t a rule in AEW, DON’T HAVE THEM ON THE RING!)

DAN LAMBET & MEN OF THE YEAR PROMO- very good
Perhaps too good, if we’re being honest, as Sky’s points seem pretty damn valid.

JAY LETHAL CONFRONTS RICKY STARKS- great
I was very happy that Lethal just flat-out said “I’m going to challenge you for the FTW Title because even though it’s not recognized, it means something to you, so I’m going to take it from you.” That’s really the best route you can take with an unrecognized title, and while it sounds heelish, Lethal’s framing of himself as essentially wanting to punish Team Taz for trying to get revenge on Dante Martin for deciding he wanted to leave them (or whatever) made Lethal not feel like a jerk here. Starks did a great job of showing that Lethal’s comments about him taking orders from Taz got to him, and the referees felt like they arrived in a believably timely manner to prevent escalation.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- bad
The Dark Order were annoying clowns. The only difference between this sh*t and The Miz and Johnny Drip-Drip was that at least Miz and Johnny Drip-Drip were supposed to be annoying heels.
Christian was good, but not good enough to make up for the Dark Order.

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: A Boy & His Dinosaur(c) (w/Christian Cage) vs. the Dark Order (John Silver & Alex Reynolds) (w/Anna Jay & Evil Uno)- 7/10
Some members of the Dark Order came out with them, but only Anna Jay and Evil Uno stayed at ringside. Weird.
The match was spotty but good. They had one very close nearfall, which would have worked a lot better if I would have been excited at the possibility of an upset rather than thinking “there is no way they’re putting the belts on these clowns, is there?”
Speaking of clowns, Ricky Starks and Chris Jericho need to leave the commentary booth immediately.


A great episode of Rampage.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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