BRM Reviews the 2/10/2023 Rampage

[Big Red Machine]

Right before this show, TNT accidentally played the commercial for last week’s show instead of this one. Oops.

BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, & Wheeler YUTA) vs. THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE & KIP SABIAN (w/The Bunny & Penelope Ford)- 6.5/10
The babyfaces beat the guys who are rarely on TV.

DARBY ALLIN & STING VIDEO PACKAGE- good, but also odd
Darby vows to hold by the stupid stipulation he pointlessly imposed upon himself to not ask for a rematch for the TNT Title. He also tells Ortiz that he will return the favor for Ortiz having his back a few weeks ago whenever Ortiz needs it.
Then Sting declared that the two of them would “GO OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY!” That’s a random and strange thing to say.

They showed us a preview of a pre-taped interview with Adam Cole that they will play on Wednesday. At this point they have killed all of my excitement for his return. If they had just had him on TV that one time and then held him off until he was ready to return for real, it would have been great. Now it feels like they (and he) were lying about him coming back soon, because it has been a full month of video packages not telling us anything new.

RICKY STARKS PROMO- His delivery was good, but I don’t understand how beating Daniel Garcia in a wrestling match with embarrass Chris Jericho. Isn’t the idea of Garcia’s story that Jericho is just using him?

THE IMPRACTICAL JOKERS GET BEATEN UP BY THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY- bad
This was a bad celebrity appearance. At least there was a satisfying, ending, though, with the thieves getting their asses kicked.

EARLIER TODAY, LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWED DUSTIN RHODES- bad
Dustin said that someone is “crossing the line” when they mention:
1. His father, who is deceased (understandable)
2. His brother (that’s really pushing it)
3. “The Rhodes name” (dude… if you’re that sensitive about someone insulting your family name, you’re in the wrong line of work).
And lest you think that I’m the one overreacting here and not Dustin, he then proceeded to tell Swerve Strickland “I’m coming for your blood, and I’m coming for your soul.” Dude… he said some mean stuff to you and no one likes that. I get it. But you’re vowing bloody murder against a man who wasn’t put a finger on you or anyone related to you.
Dustin says that he wants to fight Swerve right now… and look who just happened to be in this same… loading dock, or abandoned warehouse or whatever: Swerve’s lackeys. Dusitn attacks them, and gets his ass kicked two-on-one. Swerve then showed up and challenged the laid-out Dustin to a match “next week.” Excalibur somehow knows that he meant on Rampage. This is all pre-taped. There is no excuse to have not edited Excalibur’s line.

Tony Schiavone is claiming that Jericho “took it too far” by having his crew put the bat-thieves through a table. Go away, Tony.

RUBY SOHO vs. MARINA SHAFIR (w/Vickie Guerrero)- 4/10
Ruby won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT-
Toni Storm and Saraya came out to “have a very friendly chat” with Ruby, but were attacked out of the crowd by Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter, who I guess just happened to be in the crowd for unexplained reasons. Is it really that hard to just have people come down the f*cking ramp? Yes, that would be attacking from behind, but Britt and Hayter are not babyfaces! It makes no sense that they would stop cheating just because they feel the need to defend AEW from two women taking shot at it.
Or, if you’re really concerned with people on the babyface side doing heelish things (which AEW very clearly isn’t, but let’s pretend they are in this case), have the heels get to the ring and make their pitch to Ruby, and then have Britt or Hayter’s music play and have them run out!
And, of course, they didn’t attack together. That would logical, and we can’t have that here. Instead, we had Britt attack first, but then she started getting beaten up because she ran in to a two-on-one attack, and only then did Hayter appear. It was done this way so that they could get the first pop from Britt attacking and then get a second pop from Hayter making the save… but the goal of booking is not to create as many pops as possible. The goal of booking is to tell a compelling story that people want to tune in to see develop and are willing to pay you money for the ability to see its conclusion.
The announcers told us that Ruby was “caught in the middle,” which is ridiculous. Who is enforcing that everyone has to take a side in this debate? And why is everyone obsessing over what side Ruby Soho will pick but no one seems to care about Serena Deeb or Mercedes Martinez or Athena or Tay Melo? Yes, I know that Tay is in the JAS… and that’s essentially my point. Why is she not being forced to pick a side? If doing something else and therefore wanting nothing to do with this feud is an excuse for her, why isn’t an excuse for her, why isn’t an excuse for Ruby?

Excalibur has just been informed by Tony Khan that that three-way that he booked for a few weeks ago but didn’t happen because Dr. Baker was injured has been booked for this Wednesday.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS MARK BRISCOE- bad
Yeah… this is exactly the Mark Briscoe I don’t want to see. I want the dangerous, intense risk-taker, not the goofball hick. Speaking of Goofballs, Mark Sterling interrupted him and tried to sign him. Briscoe turned him down. Sterling insulted him, so Briscoe grabbed him, but he was pulled to safety by Ari Daivari and someone else, while Josh Woods got in Briscoe’s face. Mark was still a goof. Excalibur claimed that Woods “reignited that rivalry.” There never was a rivalry in the first place. They’ve had TWO singles matches, one of which was a match with comedy stipulations. Other than that, they have faced off in one regular tag team match.

“JUNGLE BOY” JACK PERRY vs. RYAN NEMETH- squash
Brian Cage came out after the match. Excalibur tells us that Cage has “unfinished business” from a match they had two months ago, which Jungle Boy won.

ORTIZ PROMO/VIDEO PACKAGE- great!
He admits that he messed up, but he wants Eddie Kingston to see that Eddie messed up as well, and if the only way to get Eddie to see that is violence, then so be it.

MAIN EVENT VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMOS- bad

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE- bad
Page is annoyed and asks why it is always Renee who does these interviews. While Renee has certainly been nothing but professional, he does have a point that it’s quite weird that Tony Khan keeps sending Renee to interview people who are feuding with her husband. There are, like five other interviewers in this promotion. Why does Tony insist on sending the one person whose presence might make things a little awkward?
Anyway, Page complains that he lost by a roll-up evening though he dominated the end of the match. Sorry, buddy. Those are the rules.
He starts to threaten Moxley, but Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford happened by, and Kip told him to grow the f*ck up… so Page took a swing at him.

After saving Dragon from an attack by LFI last week (apparently, although it’s not in my notes, nor either of the two PW Torch reviews, or the one at the Observer), Tony Khan has booked the Blackpool Combat Club (Claudio & Moxley) to face LFI on Dynamite… and he has randomly made it a Texas Tornado match.

AEW ALL-ATLANTIC TITLE MATCH: Orange Cassidy(c) (w/Danhausen) vs. Lee Moriarty (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 6.5/10
I have no idea what Moriarty has done to deserve a title shot. Jim Ross told us that Orange Cassidy has the second-most wins in AEW history. Yeah. This clown.
Stokely has a cast on his arm. Moriarty worked OC’s arm. It would have been better if they hadn’t wasted the first few minutes with stupid Orange Cassidy crap. OC won with a roll-up to counter a submission.


Another bad and dull episode of Rampage.

[Big Red Machine]

Apparently there was a post-match attack by Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, and friends, and then a save by the Acclaimed which my SlingTV cut off because it sucks.

I found out about this at the beginning of Dynamite, at which point the Acclaimed being the ones to make the save feels like they are being shoved into this spot to set up the eight-man tag on Dynamite, and thus explain why the Acclaimed aren't immediately demanding a rematch. I guess that's good.