BRM Reviews the 1/20/2023 Rampage

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 1/20/2023 Rampage

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 24th, '23, 22:41

JUNGLE BOY vs. ETHAN PAGE (w/Matt Hardy, Isiah Kassidy, & Stokely Hathaway)- 6.5/10
The match was nothing special, but I do have to give a lot of credit to whoever came up with the spot where Page grabbed Matt’s ponytail for extra leverage because that works as long as Matt is pulling against it (which he was), and also to whoever had to the idea to set up Matt being in that position by having Hook show up for what looked like it was going to be a standard WWE distraction finish.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- hated it
Page and Stokely blame the loss on Matt. Matt acts like he is truly sorry that he cost Page the match. Page then challenge Jungle Boy and Hook to a match next week against him and Matt Hardy. I really hate stupid heels who don’t realize that they can’t actually force a babyface to help them without real leverage, which Page doesn’t have. It has never been explained why owning someone’s contract makes you their slave.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS ORTIZ- meh
Ortiz says that the House of Black’s “mind games” got Eddie Kingston to the point where Kingston was
“about to hit a woman with a chair, and in our world, that’s a line you don’t cross.” As I said in my review of the segment where it happened, the physical execution was not good enough to make it believable that that’s what Ortiz thought was going to happen. Kingston wound up in that position from yanking the chair out of Julia’s hand as she tried to hit him with it, and Ortiz was on Eddie so quick that Kingston had no time to move in that direction… and Ortiz was facing Kingston the whole time, so there is no way he couldn’t have seen that.
Ortiz asks Kingston to come out, and Kingston does, holding a chair. Ortiz lectures him about how it’s not okay to hit a woman with a chair… and it’s a little hard for me to take that seriously from a group who HIT A CHILD WITH A CAR!
Ortiz continued, asking “What would our mentor say? What would Homicide say?”
Homicide? You mean this guy?


And that’s a situation where there is a much weaker defense argument than Kingston’s. And, of course, there is the famous, completely unprovoked Cop Killah that Homicide hit on Allison Danger in ROH, which is part indisputably part of AEW canon (as is the above-referenced segment about the vehicular assault in TNA. The above ICW clips is arguably not so).
Kingston attacked Ortiz with the chair, then left. I almost don’t blame Kingston, as this storyline has not made Ortiz come off well. It has yet to be explained why if the House of Black didn’t attack him during their big attack of everyone- including his friend Eddie Kingston- why he didn’t help Eddie by attacking the House of Black.

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO-
Apparently beating Buddy Matthews in a tag team no DQs match wasn’t enough for Darby Allin. He’s still got a score to settle, so he’s offering him a title shot. Has someone explained to Tony Khan that this title would feel a lot more important if he took the time he spends giving random title shots to paper challengers who have done to earn them and who we all know won’t win the title and instead spent that time building up one credible challenger?

WILLE MACK vs. BRIAN CAGE (w/Prince Nana)- 6/10
They actually put up a graphic telling us that Willie Mack “earned rematch vs. Brian Cage after strong showing on this week’s Dark: Elevation.” Said graphic also told us that his AEW record- not his 2023 record, but his AEW record- is 0-1. So you get a rematch against the same guy right away if you just have strong showing and lose cleanly, but if you’re, say Jon Moxley and you get screwed out of a championship, you don’t get a rematch.
Of course, the real reason this match is happening is to quickly get Brian Cage some credibility on TV going into his match against Bryan Danielson on Dynamite… and Tony thought that the best way to do that would be to have him take over twelve minutes to beat a guy with no established credibility.

THE VANITY TWINS vs. THE BADDIES (Jade Cargill & Leila Grey)- no rating boring segment
Find me an example of Jade Cargill pushing Red Velvet around before Red snubbed Jade. The announcers are portraying this as if it has been happening the whole time and Red Velvet is finally standing up to this bully, but that just doesn’t mesh with what we have seen. In fact, the only Baddie who Jade had really treated badly was Leila Grey, who is the one who is still with her. And the other two now-former Baddies were equally guilty of that.
The Baddies dominated. I didn’t rate this a squash because the point of it was to show Jade being a glory-hound, which is something we already knew, so it was just a waste of time.

VIDEO PACKAGE FOR THE MAIN EVENT- mostly good

IF DANIEL GARCIA WINS, HE GETS TO TEAM WITH CHRIS JERICHO ON DYNAMITE: Daniel Garcia vs. Action Andretti- 6.75/10
Sammy Guevara joined the commentary team for this match. Andretti won a decent- but not main event-level- match. I like Andretti winning here. He needs to keep his momentum up, and this gives Sammy something to needle Garcia about, which will then set up a match between Sammy and Andretti which Andretti can also win, moving him up the ladder while serving the Garcia/Guevara storyline.



This was a meh-to-bad episode of Rampage. The Kingston turn was important, though, so at least there is that.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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