BRM Reviews the 10/14/2022 Rampage (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB (Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli) vs. THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/The Bunny)- 6/10
The bell rang with both heels in the ring and one babyface nowhere to be found. Is it really that hard to get simple things right? Once the bell rang, they proceeded to fight on the outside forever without being counted out.
They brawled. It was brought down by the cutesy mirror imagine stuff towards the end. Moxley and Claudio cut a promo on Adam Page that didn’t say anything new.

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS SWERVE STRICKLAND & KEITH LEE- almost good
Swerve bragged about beating Billy Gunn. Lee called out Swerve for cheating to beat Billy Gunn. This would have been good if not for the fact that Swerve had an obvious response that he didn’t give, which is that it was payback for Billy cheating to cost them the tag titles. And Swerve didn’t give this response because giving it would undermine the whole story… and if your story requires everyone to just ignore something obvious or else your story will fall apart, your story sucks.

RENEE YOUNG’S INTERVIEW WITH THE DARK ORDER IS INTERRUPTED BY JOSE THE ASSISTANT- bad
10 demands a match with Rush where if he wins, Rush and pals must leave him alone forever. Jose agreed and walked away. Then John Silver decided to make what was supposed to be a threatening gesture are the retreating manager’s back. I don’t understand how anyone could watch John Silver on this show and not want to see him beaten to a bloody pulp for being such an obnoxious little turd.
They all put their hands in for a cheer. Someone else put their hand in as well, and the camera panned back to reveal it being Stu Grayson… and only once the camera had panned back for enough for us to see who it was did the people STANDING LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO HIM begin to react. F*ck this WWE bullsh*t.

JERICHO APPRCIATION SOCIETY SEGMENT- JAS bad; Dalton Castle good
Sammy Guevara, Tay Conti, and Jake Hager are absent for no explained reason. Daniel Garcia explained his heel turn as being that Jericho hitting him in the head with his title belt the other week made him think Jericho was right, so he just changed his mind and went back with Jericho.
This f*cking crowd, by the way. They cheered for Jericho for the whole title match, and cheered when Garcia turned on Danielson to help Jericho win. Tonight they cheered both guys when they came out, but then when Garcia opened his mouth and started doing the “I’m a sports entertainer, not a pro wrestler” schtick, they boo him. What did you idiots think he was going to say?
Jericho says he will “beat every single Ring of Honor Champion that has ever existed.” I eagerly await the segment where, for heat, he goes and digs up Xavier’s body and pins it.
Dalton Castle (w/the Boys) came out and cut a pretty great promo doing Dalton Castle-y stuff. He wants a title shot next week, so Jericho grants him one. Oh goody. Another ROH World Title match that the challenger did nothing to earn.

Speaking of people getting title shots they did nothing to earn, Tuesday’s Dynamite will also feature Toni Storm defending her title against Hikaru Shida. The video package here was good, but Shida hasn’t done sh*t to win the title.

ANNA JAY (w/2.0) vs. NYLA ROSE (w/Marina Shafir & Vickie Guerrero)- 4.5/10
It has been a week, and AEW has done nothing to try to make Nyla return the stolen title belt. Also, Jade Cargill has made no attempt to get it back.
Jim Ross noted that if Nyla wins tonight, she’ll be the first woman in AEW with 80 wins. She wasn’t the first one to fifty, so that means that at some point she passed Hikaru Shida for the most wins…and it was never even mentioned on TV, never mind shown, and certainly never mind built up in any way.
Nyla won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- idiotic.
Jade and her friends came out to reclaim the title belt that is legally her property and was stolen from her. AEW security tried to stop them. Jade beat up the security people, then stopped to taunt them instead of going to get the belt back, so Vickie, Marina, and Nyla were able to tip-toe past them. They stopped to taunt Jade and the Baddies… who proceeded to just stand there and do nothing istad of giving chase.

ARIYA DAIVARI VS. HOOK VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

IF ISIAH KASSIDY WINS, PRIVATE PARTY ARE FREED FROM THEIR COTRACTS, BUT IF HE LOSES, THE FIRM WILL OWN MATT HARDY’S CONTRACT AS WELL: Isiah Kassidy (w/Marq Quen & Matt Hardy) vs. Ethan Page (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 1/10
This supposedly high-stakes match wasn’t eve important enough to get it the entrances shown. Page won a very short match off of a distraction.

BEST FRIENDS PROMO- snore
Despite having done nothing to earn one, they want a shot at the Trios Title on Dynamite. Orange Cassidy is an idiot, so he didn’t know that Dynamite was on Tuesday next week.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- fine

FTR & SHAWN SPEARS vs. THE EMBASSY (Brian Cage & the Gates of Agony) (w/Prince Nana)- 6.5/10
Shawn Spears & FTR won cleanly, which defines the Embassy down.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Maria Kanellis and the Kingdom came out and said they were better than FTR. Yes, really. The Embassy attacked FTR and Spears from behind. The Kingdom got involved on the heel side. War- Joe came out, and FIVE heels (plus managers) ran away from two dudes. This set up another match that we FTR is going to win against a team one cares about.



Another bad episode of Rampage, with dull matches with obvious winners, and bad storyline development.