BRM Reviews the 3/4/2022 Rampage

[Big Red Machine]

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH IN WHICH ANYONE WHO INTERFERES WILL BE HEAVILY FINED AND SUSPENDED: Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Andrade el Idolo vs Darby Allin- 8/10
Jericho said that everyone’s stablemates are barred from ringside for the entire, but I’m certain that’s not true. Both Jericho and Taz claimed to have never seen a Tower of Doom spot before, which made them seem horrible out of touch (and which I’m certain isn’t true at least in Taz’s case, as he announced in TNA for five or six years, and the X-Division used to do them all the time). Apparently the crowd hadn’t seen one, either, as it prompted them to give the match “THIS IS AWESOME!” chants about four minutes in.
Of course, the match would turn out to be awesome by the end. It was your usual three-way series of big moves and the usual three-way story, but it was all put together very well. What really did it for me in this match, though, was the finish. I’m not even sure why I got so into the idea of Darby winning the belt back, but I got SOOOO excited when he tossed Sammy out of the ring after Sammy hit Andrade with the GTH, and when he started climbing the ropes I actually shouted “no, Darby! Just pin him! Don’t go for the Coffin Drop!”
And, of course, that would come back to bite him, as going for the Coffin Drop gave Sammy enough time to recover so he could scale the ropes and hit a move onto Darby to not only break up the pin, but also put Darby out and do more damage to Andrade so that he could then pin Andrade.

DEATH TRIANGLE VS. HOUSE OF BLACK SEGMENT- didn't like it
Alex Abrahantes is now known as “‘the Dark Priest’ Alex Abrahantes.” Give me a f*cking break. It’s so clearly him being a prop for Penta’s supposed change that it actually hurts Penta’s change by making the whole change feel phony.
Death Triangle are in the ring and Abrahantes challenges the House of Black to a six-man tag at the PPV, presumably with Abrahates as the third man on the babyface side. The House of Black magically take over the TitanTron, and despite this supposedly being impromptu, they seem to have had all of their lines and movements perfectly choreographed. Unless there is some other arm injury I’m forgetting, both teams seem to be acting as if it was the House of Black who injured Rey Fenix and not Luchasaurus.
When their message ended, the lights came back on, Death Triangle were all looking at the Tron, so the House of Black magicked themselves to the floor on the other side of the ring. If you can magically teleport, why not appear directly behind the people you’re about to attack?
Abrahates then revealed that it wouldn’t be him wrestling, but rather their new monster. Cue new music, and “WHAT IS ERICK REDBEARD DOING IN THE IMPACT ZONE?”
I mean really! Erick Rowan?! He’s fine, but that’s about it. Whatever you want to say about Tony Nese, you have to admit that he is a highly skilled professionally wrestler. Rowan… not so much. He’s just average, and when you combine that fact with his age and the WWE stink of mishandling, and the fact that guy really never got over, why would you bring him in (and, of course, that’s ignoring the fact that when Fenix returns, it will not be four vs. three in favor of the babyfaces.

Hey, look! Security sensed a potential fight, and came out proactively to keep everyone away. This is a very positive change that AEW has made recently, and they deserve praise for it.
Of course, security failed to keep them apart. Redbeard won the brawl pretty much single-handedly. Then beat up the security who were trying to restrain him. If they had ended it there, it would have been fine, but someone decided it was necessary for Penta to maliciously break an already-downed security guard’s arm, just for doing his job. What a douchebag. How is he any different from Malakai Black going around and spitting mist in people’s eyes for no reason? (And speaking of no reason, we still haven’t gotten any explanation for why he targeted Julia Hart, or for why he targeted the Death Triangle). And Abrahnates watching with glee makes it even worse.

DAN LAMBERT & SCORPIO SKY PROMO- bad
Lambert has struck a deal with Tony Khan whereby Scorpio Sky will get the title shot that he has apparently earned by being undefeated for a year, in exchange for Lambert getting Paige VanZant to sign an AEW contract. So Tony Khan is giving Sky a title shot the dude has logically already earned, and in exchange, Tony gets a big star added to his wrestling company? I’m not totally sure what Lambert gets out of this.
And if Sky really has earned this title shot, and Tony hasn’t given it to him, that just makes Tony an asshole.
Or, alternatively, if we’re supposed to think that Sky actually doesn’t deserve a title shot, then Tony Khan, supposedly a babyface, has just sold a title shot to someone in exchange for a favor (getting PVZ on his roster). In other words, Tony took a bribe. BAD!

J.D. DRAKE vs. KEITH LEE- 4/10
Oh. Apparently everyone really is banned from ringside for every match tonight, regardless of if there is a history of interference like in the opener. Well if that’s the case, then why isn’t that a permanent rule? It’s like AEW goes out of their way to create logical problems in the show.
This was a short but fun hoss fight, dominated by Lee, as you’d expect. Ricky Starks was on commentary and was quite entertaining.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
The Wingmen ran out and attacked Keith Lee. This felt like something that happened because the booker wanted to shine Lee up more before the PPV rather than something that had any real organic reason to happen.
Ricky Starks and Will Hobbs head down the ramp to have a stare-down with (or maybe attack) Keith Lee, but stopped when Orange Cassidy’s music hit, because I guess C cares about coming out for a forced stare-down to promote a PPV match.

BLOODY CM PUNK PROMO FROM BACKSTAGE, AFTER THE DOCTORS GOT HIM STITCHED UP- awesome!
He vows bloody revenge on MJF and says (in different words) that he will be mean indy Punk again and not the “PG Punk” that MJF thinks he is.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JADE CARGILL & MARK STERLING- idiotic
Apparently Sterling put it in the contract that Tay Conti can’t initiate any contact with Jade until forty-eight hours before the match. Why forty-eight hours instead of “until the match?” Cargill gets nothing out of giving Tay this forty-eight-hour window! It is was so clearly a number put in just d this segment could occur.
Anyway, as Sterling is bragging about this, Anna Jay shows up to point out that were are now at t-minus forty-eight hours until Revolution 2022… and to cause a distraction so that Tay can attack Jade like a total coward.
That was bad enough, but it’s made even worse by the fact that Jade didn’t even do anything to deserve this! She called your martial arts discipline stupid? So what? Grow some thick skin like Keith Lee. That’s nowhere near enough to justify setting a trap and attacking someone two days later! It’s ridiculous, and it all made Tay look like a total heel.

FIVE-MINUTE CHALLENGE: Serena Deeb vs. Leila Grey- no rating, okay segment
Deeb wins another pointless squash. This time, she just happens to decide to go back and attack the jobber afterwards… and it just so happens to be the first time that her nemesis Hikaru Shida is back in the building to make the save. I love how Shida walked out until she was on the top of the ramp so people could see who she was and react, and only then did she start running to save poor Leila Grey from unnecessary torture she was being put through. Good to see she has her priorities straight.
She hit Deeb with a Kendo stick a lot. Props to whoever came up with the idea for Deeb to try to get away by diving over the table, so that she could be in a position where it was natural, easiest, and least risky for Shida to be hitting Deeb in the knee.
And, once again, here is security to stop Shida from continuing after the fleeing woman.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS EDDIE KINGSTON- awesome!
“Kayfabe may be dead, but we don’t have to piss on its grave.” That right there is the philosophy everyone should have.
Also, the stuff he said about Jericho was great, too.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- GREAT!
Ethan Page was awesome. Christian was good, too, and I appreciated the fact that he- through it being enabled by the booking of Tony Khan- was able to use this match here to spotlight for us viewers a scenario where two otherwise unlikely results (him winning at the PPV and Scorpio Sky beating Sammy for the TNT Title next week) could be quite plausible. I LOVE things like that.

FACE OF THE REVOLUTION LADDER MATCH QUALIFIER: Ethan Page vs. Christian Cage- 6.75/10
Does someone want to tell Christian that “outwork” is one word? He has been in AEW for an entire year at this point. How as no one caught this?
This is the second straight week that a qualifying match for a #1 contendership match has main evented Rampage over the actual title that the wrestlers in the #1 contendership match will be competing for a shot at, and with lesser stars in it than the title match as well. That’s not good for the TNT Title.
Christian won a fine match… and because of the way he set it up in his pre-match promo, I can’t say that it was wrong to put the ex-WWE old guy over the up-and-comer here.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- forced
Jurassic Express came out to celebrate with Christian. If they had just left it at this while Excalibur plugged the tag title match, it would have been fine. Instead we got Jurassic Express putting their tag titles down for no good reason, at which point the Young Bucks and reDRagon came out together and each grabbed one tag belt so they could have a stare-down. I appreciated that them getting in each other’s faces not only got the belts close enough for Luchasaurus to grab both at once, but also to get all four heels close enough together for Jungle Boy to dive onto them, but once again, the whole scenario felt forced.


This was an okay show from AEW. The opener was awesome and some of the promos were awesome, but way too many of the interactions they had to build up to the PPV were not effective, ranging from feeling forced to outright contradicting the babyface/heel dynamic like in Conti vs. Cargill.

[cero2k]

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH IN WHICH ANYONE WHO INTERFERES WILL BE HEAVILY FINED AND SUSPENDED: Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Andrade el Idolo vs Darby Allin- 8/10
Jericho said that everyone’s stablemates are barred from ringside for the entire, but I’m certain that’s not true. Both Jericho and Taz claimed to have never seen a Tower of Doom spot before, which made them seem horrible out of touch (and which I’m certain isn’t true at least in Taz’s case, as he announced in TNA for five or six years, and the X-Division used to do them all the time). Apparently the crowd hadn’t seen one, either, as it prompted them to give the match “THIS IS AWESOME!” chants about four minutes in.

if you're talking about the one with the delayed suplex and Andrade walked the powerbomb, I also had never seen one like that and I saw about 95% of Cage and Elgin's matches in PWG.

[Big Red Machine]

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH IN WHICH ANYONE WHO INTERFERES WILL BE HEAVILY FINED AND SUSPENDED: Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Andrade el Idolo vs Darby Allin- 8/10
Jericho said that everyone’s stablemates are barred from ringside for the entire, but I’m certain that’s not true. Both Jericho and Taz claimed to have never seen a Tower of Doom spot before, which made them seem horrible out of touch (and which I’m certain isn’t true at least in Taz’s case, as he announced in TNA for five or six years, and the X-Division used to do them all the time). Apparently the crowd hadn’t seen one, either, as it prompted them to give the match “THIS IS AWESOME!” chants about four minutes in.

if you're talking about the one with the delayed suplex and Andrade walked the powerbomb, I also had never seen one like that and I saw about 95% of Cage and Elgin's matches in PWG.

I've seen it like a million times in TNA during the time when they were just using the X-Division to have spotfests.

[cero2k]

if you're talking about the one with the delayed suplex and Andrade walked the powerbomb, I also had never seen one like that and I saw about 95% of Cage and Elgin's matches in PWG.

I've seen it like a million times in TNA during the time when they were just using the X-Division to have spotfests.
[/quote]

Really? I have zero memory of one like this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in the X-Division

[Big Red Machine]

if you're talking about the one with the delayed suplex and Andrade walked the powerbomb, I also had never seen one like that and I saw about 95% of Cage and Elgin's matches in PWG.

I've seen it like a million times in TNA during the time when they were just using the X-Division to have spotfests.

Really? I have zero memory of one like this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in the X-Division
[/quote]

It was certainly in the X-Division. They were doing stuff like that all the time. The women in WWE been doing spots like that in MITBs as well, although possibly not that exact spot (I have vivid memories of them doing a double version of it, though, with two powerbombers and two suplexers, and one suplexee).

[cero2k]

It was certainly in the X-Division. They were doing stuff like that all the time. The women in WWE been doing spots like that in MITBs as well, although possibly not that exact spot (I have vivid memories of them doing a double version of it, though, with two powerbombers and two suplexers, and one suplexee).

let me be specific, I've seen a thousand powerbomb + superplex combos, but never with a delayed superplex and the powerbomb walking away from the corner.

[Big Red Machine]

It was certainly in the X-Division. They were doing stuff like that all the time. The women in WWE been doing spots like that in MITBs as well, although possibly not that exact spot (I have vivid memories of them doing a double version of it, though, with two powerbombers and two suplexers, and one suplexee).

let me be specific, I've seen a thousand powerbomb + superplex combos, but never with a delayed superplex and the powerbomb walking away from the corner.

I've definitely seen the delayed one a few times.