BRM Reviews the 4/28/2023 Rampage (bad... but storyline important)

All AEW Related Reviews and Discussions
Post Reply
User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

BRM Reviews the 4/28/2023 Rampage (bad... but storyline important)

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 30th, '23, 12:01

RICKY STARKS & SHAWN SPEARS vs. BULLET CLUB GOLD (Jay White & Juice Robinson)- 6.75/10
Bullet Club win a solid opener cleanly when White pinned Spears. Starks attacked the heels after the match and sent them scurrying.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS HOOK & THE HARDY BOYS- atrocious
Lexi notes that Isiah Kassidy is still missing.
Let’s start right here:
1. Kassidy was ABDUCTED BY CO-WORKERS LAST WEEK. It has been SEVEN DAYS, and Tony Khan has not stepped in to ensure the man’s release?
2. I didn’t actually watch last week’s Rampage, so this is the first I am hearing about him being “missing.” Yes, one group of wrestlers abducted another on AEW TV, and they didn’t even mention it on Dynamite.
Speaking of not saying anything on Dynamite, Matt demanded that the firm tell him where Isiah Kassidy was, but all of his passion felt hollow to me because he let three AEW shows go by without coming out and saying anything, only to now be saying something when it is the time that Tony Khan has booked for him to say something. If he really cared, he would have come out to the ring on Dark: Elevation on Monday and demanded that the first tell him where Isiah Kassidy was.
Matt also made his demand in a way that like he was sure they were behind the abduction, but couldn’t prove it… which is odd because anyone with a DVR (not to mention the AEW office) can provide him with video proof of that fact. I think the specific issue here was the way he said “I know you’re behind it,” because, as I said, there is video proof of that, so emphasizing this obvious thing instead of just demanding that the Firm release him makes it seem like he doesn’t realize that everyone is supposed to know.
Anyway, at this prompting, the TV screen right next to them magically popped on, and we saw the Firm there, with Isiah Kassidy being held hostage on top of a randomly placed scaffold. Stokely said something about Isiah having been kidnapped from an Applebee’s, which is clearly false based on what we saw last week, so I don’t know why he even bothered to say it.
Stokely demanded that Matt Hardy tell him when the Firm Deletion match would be. I in no way want to justify what the Firm have done here, but hasn’t Matt been promising to tell him that every week for about three weeks now? Stokely’s frustration is understandable.
Ethan Page took a different tact. He outright told Matt that the match would happen next week on Rampage, and if Matt did not agree to that, Big Bill would chokeslam Isiah off of this scaffold. Matt had no choice put to agree, but Page broke his word and bill chokeslammed Isiah off the scaffold. The sound we heard when he landed make it very clear that he did not land on the concrete were supposed to think he landed on.
Matt insisted that he, Jeff, and Hook “go find those sons of bitches” and make them “dead men.” Jeff did not seem to care very much, which was not good. I thought Hook did a great job of staying in character and giving us quick facial hints that he was concerned without really otherwise reacting. Then, when the Hardys left, Hook doubled back to Lexi and said into the microphone “the Firm’s getting deleted.” Hook was the only good part of this. Well… Hook, and the fact that I now finally know when this terrible storyline is coming to an end.

KEITH LEE & DUSTIN RHODES vs. TWO JOBBERS- squash
Shane Strickland and the Embassy came out after the match to stare at Naturally Limitless. I think keeping Dustin I this feud makes it feel like it’s moving backwards.



LEXI NAIR’S INTERVIEW WITH SAMMY GUEVARA IS INTERRUPTED BY TAY MELO- Are you f*cking kidding me?!
Tay told Lexi to scram and Lexi obliged. She took the microphone with her, and yet we could still hear Tay and Sammy just as well. Maybe it was because the actual camera moved closer to them?
Tay reads Sammy the riot act about selling out his dream of being world champion for money (“we don’t even need money!) and tells him that “MJF is not your friend!” And Sammy looked PENSIVE! Like he was actually deeply considering the things that Tay was saying.
Are you f*cking kidding me? I had thought from day one that this was all a fake friendship and Sammy was going to try to screw MJF over by rolling him up when MJF when to cover him when Sammy laid down for him, but apparently not. Apparently, he was actually going to take a bribe to lie down in a world title match. I gave AEW far too much credit.
And it gets worse! How does Tony Khan create a change in Sammy to get him to not do this? By having his wife give him a big babyface speech appealing to babyface values (“would little Sammy be proud of what you’re doing?”).

Also, remember at the beginning of the year when Jericho ordered Daniel Garcia to follow Sammy Guevara around? That story never concluded, and yet the moment Sammy has something else to do, Garcia disappears, and Sammy disappears from the JAS’ feuds. That’s bad storytelling.

ANNA JAY vs. ASHLEY D’AMBOISE 3/10
Annay Jay won a match that was more competitive than it should have been.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Julia Hart magically teleports into the ring behind Anna and attacks her. Anna wins the brawl anyway. Referees came out to pull her off of Julia. That’s two weeks in a row that people break these two up, but no one comes out to stop the Blackpool Combat Club from stabbing people with screwdrivers. “Detail Guy” Tony Khan, everyone.

OUTCASTS PROMO- mostly good, although Ruby did the L backwards.
Saraya faces Willow Nightingale on Dynamite.

THE ACLAIMED & BILLY GUNN vs. THREE JOBBERS- pointless squash
I did like the one guy actually getting offended at Castor making fun of him during his rap and charging at him. “You’re gonna lose this match like Don Lemon loses jobs” was a pretty silly line when you realize that Don Lemon has only lost one job in the past fifteen years.
This was a completely pointless quash that served no purpose for any storyline. Just do this as a dark match and give the main event an extra three minutes.

MAKR HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- great
Mark essentially asked Lethal if his friends were going to cheat again. Jay did a great job of brushing it off, and Cash did a great promo of saying “oh yes they will.” For that reason, Mark Briscoe will be at ringside.

In the graphic for next week’s Rampage, they have Isiah Kassidy participating in the match at the Hardy compound, despite supposedly being chokeslammed ten feet onto concrete. That’s optimistic. And don’t tell me “The graphic as already made,” because that same segment was the one where they announced the date of the match, so they had to do some editing since Kassidy was injured.

SINGLES MATCH WITH MARK BRISCOE AS SPECIAL GUEST ENFORCER: Cash Wheeler (w/Dax Harwood) vs. Jay Lethal (w/Satnam Singh, Jeff Jarrett, & Sonjay Dutt)- 6.5/10
Jim Ross wondered why they don’t just bar everyone from ringside. Excalibur said that the officials tried that, but the heels still interfered anyway. Well… how about if you bar someone from ringside and then they come back out anyway, YOU F*CKING DISQUALIFY THEIR FRIEND? That’s what you’re supposed to do. What purpose does a rule serve if it doesn’t have teeth?

Anyway, Mark saw the heels cheat once and stopped them. He saw them try to cheat a second time but they had forty guys at ringside so he couldn’t, allowing Lethal to win. FTR was upset at Mark afterwards.

I found FTR being upset at Mark to be kind of silly, as they’re experienced tag team wrestlers and they know referees aren’t perfect, and they know that Mark tried to break up the cheating. I also don’t understand exactly how this helps to move a story along in any way that doesn’t conclude it. Mark is a good person and saw that Lethal and pals were cheating (which he should have known before anyway) so he should now refuse to have anything to do with them. If he didn’t care about the cheating, he wouldn’t have tried to stop it. If you want to build up Lethal & Jarrett challenging for the tag titles just build that up and don’t do this silly Mark Bricoe crap. Let Mark be a centerpiece act for ROH, where they badly need the credibility of his past connection to the glory years so that we have a singles babyface who can fill that role (Claudio and Joe are both heels, and Daniels and Sydal are a tag team).


This was yet another bad episode of Rampage, although at least it felt like it had storyline importance this week.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests