BRM Reviews the 1/12/2022 Rampage (TERRIBLE)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 1/12/2022 Rampage (TERRIBLE)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 13th, '22, 22:31

OPENING SEGMENT- mostly awesome
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure AEW has started a show with a promo rather than a match only about five times in over a hundred shows, so this should be big.
Adam Cole and reDRagon come out for Storytime with Adam Cole, Bay-Bay. Cole says that reDRagon are “the baddest team on G-d’s green” and that it is “a new era in AEW.”
This all brought out the Bucks, who didn’t know about this and clearly don’t approve. Both teams want the tag titles. Cole tries to spin things positively and steer them towards “friendly competition” and refers to them as one whole faction. Cole insults the Best Friends, so the whole Goof Patrol comes out… minus Kris Statlander, because even though she would make the odds even (Cutler doesn’t count) she’s just a mere girl, I guess. (Yes, I know that they don’t want male-on-female violence on the show, but that’s not a kayfabe explanation).
OC started a brawl with Cole. Everyone else quickly cleared out of the ring, leaving them alone. Cole hit OC in the nuts and set up for the superkick, but Statlander came out to stand in front of Cole… and she just stood there, because if she were to actually attack Cole, either the heels would lose the segment, which wasn’t the plan, or Cole would have to respond with male-on-female violence, which the network/AEW/both doesn’t want.
Statlander stood here for long enough that Britt Baker was able to run out and attack her from behind. Cole then finished beating up OC. The heels all celebrated, but Excalibur pointed out that the only one actually happy about all of this was Adam Cole. He did his pose where the Bucks usually come in and kiss him on the cheeks, but Britt Baker got in the way because she wanted to kiss Cole on the lips. I thought that that in particular was a really clever little spot in that it is yet another “new” person in Cole’s orbit doing something to alienate the Bucks, but it’s not really something they can complain about.
Overall, I thought the segment did an excellent job of alienating the Bucks from Cole and creating tension between the Bucks and reDRagon while using the Goof Patrol to delay any real blow-up for forcing them to temporarily work together, which will allow for tension to be ratcheted up further in future weeks before it blows up.
I do have one big worry, though, and that is the following. Looking at this story on paper (as it currently stands, anyway), the Bucks should be the babyfaces here. They brought their friend Adam into their company, and now all of a sudden Adam is bringing in his new friends and spending a lot more time with them. But despite that, the Bucks are coming off more heelish to me, while FutureDRagon feel like babyfaces, even with the added element of Britt- a top heel herself- coming in and doing things to alienate the Bucks). I think some of it has to do with the Bucks having been the first ones to be confrontational (going to back to when it was just Bobby Fish who had come in) and some of it might just be Brandon Cutler (although you really can’t not have him out there, either), but I think I just have too much of a built-up affinity for Cole, Fish, and O’Reilly as compared to the Bucks.
Whatever the reason, if AEW want the Bucks to be the babyfaces, they’ll have to be very careful in how they do this… and if they want them to be the heels, they’ll also have to be careful, as the story on paper seems designed for them to come out of it the babyfaces (and get that big babyface pop whenever Kenny Omega returns to help them).


WARDLOW VIDEO PACKAGE- bad
First of all, this came off as way too over the top and goofy. Secondly, Wardlow is about to face CM PUNK… and yet there was no mention or even IMAGE of Punk. There was no talk about this being a new test or a step up or anything. What there was, however, were some shots of Shawn Spears, and a tease of Wardlow’s path of destruction “ending in tragedy,” despite that fact that, however annoying he has been, there hasn’t been so much as a hint of any kind that Spears would cost Wardlow a match, either purposely or accidentally. All of his attacks on Wardlow’s opponents have been either before the bell or after it.
This is exactly the wrong way to go about this sort of thing, because it while it focuses your attention on where it needs to be to see the storyline they want to do, it goes too far in that direction, like a commentator trying to show off how much they know by giving the story away in the form of a “but maybe this will happen” when there has been no actual hint of said occurrence (think Heenan’s infamous “but whose side is he on?”). In addition to that, the lack of focus on the thing we’re actually supposed to be excited for in this upcoming match (the fact that it’s a clash between two big names, one of whom- and not the guy in the video package- is a beloved babyface) makes the whole thing feel less like the sporting event it’s supposed to feel like and pushes it into the realm of a work of fiction where the primary goal is to admire the booker’s talent.
You could argue that they’re trying to focus you on the emotional punch of Wardlow probably getting screwed here, but to that I say the following:
1. What emotional punch? What has Wardlow ever done to be likable? Sure, MJF has started to mistreat him a bit, but Wardlow has shown time and again that he is not a moral, likable, or even intelligent person. What positive qualities does he have short of “we like seeing beat people up,” which could apply to anyone on the show?
2. That doesn’t negate the negatives I have highlighted above, and furthermore, I dispute that there is any sort of either/or situation here. The character fallout resulting from Wardlow getting screwed will be there whether you do this video package or not, and as I’ve argued above, doing it was a big negative to other things, and so with no unique positive and a whole bunch of negatives, doing this video package was a mistake.

Now that I’ve spent all of this time writing this, let’s see how much of it will or won’t wind up being moot.

CM PUNK vs. WARDLOW (w/MJF)- No rating, HORRIBLE segment
Excalibur put over Wardlow for his average match time during his eighteen-match winning streak being under one minute. That sounds impressive, until you realize that he’s just been beating jobbers. If Lebron James and I played fifty games of one-on-one, Lebron would go 50-0 and keep his opponent to an average of zero points. If you swap me out for James Harden, that’s going to change drastically.
These two had an okay back-and-forth match build around Wardlow being big and scary, and the tease of the powerbomb. Wardlow was able to hit a powerbomb thanks to an MJF distraction, then hit four more before going to pin Punk with his foot on his chest, but MJF hopped up onto the apron to tell Wardlow to do more damage.
Wardlow does some more powerbombs, but now MJF wants Wardlow to put Punk through a table. Obviously Wardlow will be unhappy because he knows that if he powerbombs Punk through a table he’ll get disqualified and lose not just a match against a top star that he otherwise would surely have won, but his entire winning streak as well, right?
NOPE. Wardlow powerbombs Punk through the table… and Aubrey Edwards checks on Punk, then just starts counting him out. Tony Schiavone said “you’ll remember last week that MJF got counted out.” Hopefully you won’t remember that, because THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. It was a DQ, not a count-out, and they just reminded us of that a few minutes ago in the graphic during MJF’s entrance. Can we please get rid of Schiavone and replace him with someone competent? PLEASE? F*cking LENNY LEONARD is available!
Anyway, it took Aubrey a full f*cking minute to count from one to ten, with Punk just making it in at the last moment. He’s basically dead in the ring. MJF hops up onto the apron and orders Wardlow to powerbomb Punk again. For some reason, Wardlow doesn’t want to, so MJF yells at him. Wardlow gives in and goes to do it… but Punk rolls him up with a small package for the win.
MJF began to yell at Wardlow that “YOU NEVER WIN BIG MATCHES!” and started poking him in the chest. Wardlow got angry and grabbed MJF’s hand and started to twist. Shawn Spears came out to try to calm Wardlow down… and apparently that worked.

Oh my G-d there was so much wrong with this.
1. After the first set of powerbombs when Wardlow had things won but MJF demanded more, Tony Schiavone said that MJF usually doesn’t like Wardlow “showing off,” but this time “it’s different” because “it’s personal” and MJF wants Wardlow to put Punk out.
First of all, if the idea was supposed to be that Wardlow was “showing off” against these jobbers by hurting them more than necessary, that doesn’t make him likable at all. That makes him a jerk. Secondly, why would MJF give a sh*t if Wardlow “shows off” by putting some extra punishment on some jobber? If anything, he should like it, as it makes his bodyguard look bigger and scarier.
And, of course, if “this time it’s different” because “it’s personal” and the goal is to put Punk out, then it’s not Wardlow showing off at all. Wardlow is trying to fulfill an additional objective, so this situation isn’t even comparable to those others.
2. Why was Wardlow at all reluctant to keep powerbombing CM Punk? They’re not friends, and Wardlow is a mercenary who gets paid to hurt people. Why does he care whether he wins via pinfall or via referee stoppage after powerbombing Punk as many times as it takes for the referee to decide that Punk is unable to continue?
There was absolutely no reason for Wardlow to not want to continue beating on Punk (and don’t tell me excessive punishment, as that surely would have been called during one of his other matches by this point), and therefore there was no reason for MJF to have to get up and yell at him, and thus no reason for Punk to have been given a chance to recover. But the story they wanted to tell needed Punk t be given a chance to recover via MJF yelling at Wardlow so that Punk can win via roll-up and it can be “MJF’s fault,” so they had to manufacture Wardlow suddenly deciding that he didn’t want to keep powerbombing Punk, even though it’s completely out of character… and if your story depends on someone acting completely out of character, you need to go back to the drawing board because your story sucks.
3. If Wardlow disobeys MJF and just pins Punk, what would happen to him? MJF would fire him from the contract he clearly didn’t like last week? If he’s such a big star then he shouldn’t really care about that, as he knows that AEW or WWE will sign him- and possibly for more money than he is getting from MJF, never mind getting out of the ridiculous contract he was dumb enough to sign.
4. Why does MJF care that Wardlow lost this match? As was made clear, MJF’s desire was for Wardlow to injure CM Punk. As we saw with Darby Allin, MJF and pals have no problem attacking someone outside of the confines of a match, so why is MJF’s reaction Wardlow getting rolled up to yell at Wardlow instead of just to run in and assault Punk, and to order Wardlow to do the same?
5. In a similar vein, why did MJF want the match to keep going? If the goal is to injure Punk, why not just let Wardlow get the pin with his foot on Punk’s chest, then they could both just beat Punk up afterwards? Hell, they could start beating Punk up with weapons if they wanted to, and it wouldn’t even both Wardlow because he would have already gotten his win.
6. MJF’s criticism of Wardlow is that “you never win big matches!” And, looking at the history, that’s pretty much true, isn’t? He lost to Cody in the cage, lost to Hager in their MMA match, lost to Jericho during the Labors of Jericho, lost to Adam Page in their #1 contendership tournament match (though he did beat Hager cleanly at New Year’s Smash last year), and now he’s lost to CM Punk here. Obviously this one can be blamed on MJF, but remember that it was MJF distracting Punk that allowed Wardlow to hit that first powerbomb, so who knows if Wardlow would have won this one on his own?
Now combine that with the fact that 99% of Wardlow’s wins have come against complete and total jobbers, and we’re forced to wonder how good Wardlow really is if every time he gets put against someone of any note, he loses.

So yeah, this was atrocious. This is the sort of thing that really breaks my faith in Tony Khan as a storyteller. He clearly understands how to write drama and conflicts, but he doesn’t understand how to make sure the characters actions MAKE LOGICAL SENSE.



DANTE MARTIN vs. WILL HOBBS (w/Ricky Starks)- 5.5/10
Jay Lethal came out to stop Starks from interfering, and Dante hit a top-rope move for the win literally right afterwards. Starks tried to grab at Dante but Dante avoided him and Lethal pulled him to safety.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS THE INNER CIRCLE MINUS SAMMY GUEVARA- bad
Apparently they were PWI’s 2021 Faction of the Year. Really? They weren’t even the best faction in their own promotion.
Jericho did all of the talking. He said that if 2.0 tried to get involved in Sammy’s match tonight, they would stop them.
Eddie Kingston then walked in front of their interview. You remember what happened to Orange Cassidy for merely walking behind them, so I can’t imagine what they’ll beat Kingston’s brain in with.
Kingston was a total heel here, saying that Jericho should stay away from Daniel Garcia because Kingston wanted to beat him up, and saying “no one cares about Sammy.” It sounds to me like Kingston is just upset that he didn’t get booked against Garcia for the 8th straight week, and he should go be upset at Tony Khan, not the Inner Circle.
He says that LAX aren’t tag champs because they’re running with Jericho and not with him. Jericho then buried the indies by saying that AEW was the “big leagues.” Jericho saying that he “doesn’t care” about Kingston and LAX’s history together, because here in the “big leagues” it’s the Inner Circle who are a group and Kingston should leave them alone came off as not just heelish, but childish as well. LAX aren’t allowed to be friends with anyone Jericho isn’t friends with, I guess.
Ortiz, being an adult, told them to get their sh*t together, and walked off. Kingston was annoyed at this and got upset at Santana, who walked off as well. Then Hager walked off, because… um…
Jericho told Kingston that he would be at ringside in the main event and would beat up 2.0 if they tried to get involved, and he would do the same Kingston was well. Jericho told Kingston “GFY.” Apparently Kingston doesn’t know what that means.
Anyway, this was bad. Jericho and Kingston were both completely unlikable, with Jericho being childish and unlikable, while Kingston was more of just general douche.

MJF PROMO- He ranted and raved and said that Punk got a “fluke win” over an “alt” tonight (again, the guy who was so diplomatic with the Inner Circle when he was trying to infiltrate them has apparently lost all of that skill), so next week he’s going to give Punk the match he wants, and it will be CM Punk vs. Shawn Spears.
MJF’s delivery was great, but doing the same thing he did last week was just annoying (and not in a good way). What does he even think he gets out of coming out and here and ranting like this and misleading people?

ADAM COLE, THE YOUNG BUCKS, & REDRAGON BACKSTAGE- meh
Everyone abuses Brandon Culer. The Bucks didn’t like it when Kyle O’Reilly did it, but the yelled at Cutler for thanking them for standing up for him. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to get in the way of them coming out of this as babyfaces.
Cole cut a promo saying that they’ve beaten Best Friends so many times it’s silly. He brought Britt Baker in and she said that she and Cole were challenging Kris Statlander and Orange Cassidy to a mixed tag team match next week. If they’re so tired of beating these guys up, why are they challenging them to yet another match?
Britt called Brandon Cutler “Brandon Butler,” which was much funnier than O’Reilly calling him “Landon” before. He corrected her, so they all yelled at him to shut up. Snore. Does anyone find that entertaining anymore?

ADAM PAGE’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY DAN LAMBERT- bad
Lambert called Page “the East Coast urban cowboy the AEW fanbase can relate to.” That made me laugh. He said that Page had earned his success, unlike Cody, who politicks for his. He said that Page is great, but his gimmick is disrespecting the legacies of great cowboys of wrestling’s past.
Page insisted that he was a real cowboy because he:
1. Grew up on a farm with a hundred head of cattle. That seems like a fair point.
2. He turned down a six-figure contract to help start AEW and win the title. I’m pretty sure the majority of cowboys don’t turn down big contracts to try to win championships in professional wrestling, so, no, Adam, this does not, in fact, make you a cowboy.

Page suggested that Lambert come into the ring so Page could beat him up. As you’d expect, Lambert declined. Then someone’s music played. It turns out it was Lance Archer’s, and he’s back. Lambert was too dumb to run through the crowd, so he ran into the ring. Archer grabbed him (I was shocked it wasn’t Page), looking for revenge for an attack five months ago that he saw no need to take any revenge for at any point in the two months between said attack and when he disappeared from TV.
Lambert convinced Archer that he shouldn’t waste the opportunity of being in the ring with the world champion and should go attack Page instead, and Archer listened. Why not beat Lambert up now, and then attack Page some other time? It’s not like Lance Archer is above assaulting people backstage. Hell, it’s basically all he did in AEW for five months in 2020.
Excalibur pretty much tried to retcon those months between Archer’s issue with Lambert and his injury (apparently that’s why he disappeared) out of existence. Archer beat Page up with a chair. Page’s supposed friends in the Dark Order were nowhere to be found.
I really disliked this segment, and the main issue was Lambert’s involvement. I don’t think anyone really cares about whether or not Page is a real cowboy, but even if they did, this whole thing would have been better if Archer had just come out from the crowd and attacked Page. As I pointed out above, bringing Archer and Lambert’s history into this is actually a continuity gaffe, and the fact that the one time Lambert doesn’t have his guys with him when he comes out and cuts a promo is the time they wanted someone to attack him. It is a recurring problem in AEW that characters’ action will stray from the norm for no explainable reason other than the completely invalid reason of serving the needs of the plot.
Archer also appears to have had a special t-shirt made to commemorate his big return tonight. That feels completely out of character for him.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH ARN ANDERSON, LEE JOHNSON, & BROCK ANDERSON IS INTERRUPTED BY TULLY BLANCHARD & FTR- meh
Arn tells his two young charges that tonight they are getting to experience something they have never experience before: Horsemen Country. Really? I can’t imagine that these two haven’t been to a wrestling show in the Carolinas before (cagematch.net says that Johnson has even wrestled in the Carolinas for AEW before).
Tully Blanchard and his charges just happened to be walking by just as the Horsemen were being brought up. Mean things were said. Dax suggested that next week, Lee and Brock “accept the open challenge between us.” If it’s between specific groups, it’s not an open challenge!

JADE CARGILL VIDEO PACKAGE- good

HIKARU SHIDA vs. SERENA DEEB- no rating, fine segment
Deeb took out Shida’s knee with a sneak attack during Shida’s entrance. Shida insisted on wrestling despite what appeared to be a debilitating injury. Deeb kept focusing on the knee and dominated Shida for a minute or two until she was awarded the win via referee stoppage. Good. That sort of thing should happen every now and again, so that the babyfaces aren’t constantly overcoming these big injuries. Deeb attacked Shida’s knee with a Kendo stick after the match. A herd of referees came out to pull her off. It sure would have been nice if they had done the same thing for Adam Page ten minutes ago.
Tay Conti, Anna Jay, and a third woman came out to check on Shida.
This was fine, but I would have liked this more if this feud didn’t feel like hasn’t moved forward since day one. I was rolling my eyes when Excalibur said that this “has escalated to completely unexpected levels” when it’s not even the first time Deeb has attacked Shida after a match.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CHRISTIAN CAGE, JUNGLE BOY, & LUCHASAURUS- snore
Christian sent well-wishes to Rey Fenix. Jungle Boy said they wanted to be fighting champion and would accept a challenge from any team in the Top Five. The Beaver Boys were walking by. John Silver was an annoying goof. Apparently these clowns have somehow made it into the top five. The last time they were on the winning end of a televised match was a sixteen-man tag where they didn’t get the pin. The time before that was TEN MONTHS AGO.
These guys are getting a tag title shot, though, because I think this show has made it clear that Tony Khan hates me personally. I cannot look at Silver or hear his voice without wanting to see someone stomp his head into a bloody pulp.

MATT HARDY PROMO- bad
He’s pretty much a total home-town babyface, other than saying he is going to send Penta to the hospital.

PENTA EL 0M (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. MATT HARDY (w/Private Party)- 5.75/10
This started off with a solid minute of pose/catchphrase-related gaga. They overcame that to have a pretty decent match for nine minutes. Penta won clean. I have no problem with this, but I’m curious how many people who usually get so up in arms when WWE beats someone in their home town will do so here. They could have put pretty much anyone in Matt’s spot.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Penta cut a promo vowing to show Malakai Black some respect. These guys aren’t feuding, are they? Black interrupted Penta’s catchphrase, by making the lights go off. When they came back on, he was in the ring and attacked first Abrahantes and then Penta.
It wasn’t until I was wondering why Pac didn’t come out to help Black that I remembered that these guys are feuding. The Varsity Blonds came out to help Penta, and they just stomped the sh*t out of Black. Black started to laugh, and then used his magical powers of cutting arena lights to teleport everyone into their own corner and teleport Brody King to the middle. And, of course, Brody had to be facing the hard-cam so we could se who he was and pop, but this positioning resulted in him directly facing ZERO of the three men he was summoned to fight, and turning his back to two of them.
Brody beat them up anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter. Excalibur called them “the Kings of the Black Throne.” I really hope that’s not their name, simply because it would be ridiculous for Excalibur to already know what they’re called when ten seconds ago he wasn’t sure if Brody was a member of the group and wasn’t expecting him to be in the company.
Anyway, this was more magical bullsh*t instead of doing what they actually need to do, which is explain (or even at least hint at) what Malakai Black’s motivations for doing anything he does are. The part of this I liked the most was the visual of the heel who pissed off too many people for no real reason getting the crap stomped out of him by a bunch of vengeful babyfaces.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS KRIS STATLANDER, LEYLA HIRSCH, & RED VELVET- bad
Leyla Hirsch is upset that Statlander has accepted a challenge for a match on next week’s Dynamite, when these three have been booked in a six-woman tag on Rampage, because apparently wrestlers are incapable of focusing on two things at once in Leyla Hirsch’s mind.
Statlander fires back that it is really Leyla who is the selfish one because Leyla is only focused on “trying to get the pins.” Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be focused on? If she’s stealing pins or something then 1) make Statlander f*cking says it right, and if she doesn’t then re-shoot, and 2) put an example or two of it on the f*cking TV show at some point in the six weeks beforehand!
Red Velvet tells them that if they have any chance of winning on Rampage, they’ll have to be on te same page. At no point during this did anyone mention who their opponents will be.

THE ACCLAIMED vs. BEAR COUNTRY- 4.5/10
Max Caster insulted Bear Country and said that Darby Allin and Sting were afraid of them (afraid of the Acclaimed, not Bear Country, I mean).
The Acclaimed, the top-ranked team in AEW, went fifty-fifty with a pair of clowns who never win on TV. Thankfully the Acclaimed at least got to win mostly cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Sting showed up when the Acclaimed were on the ramp. Caster tried to leave the other direction but Darby Allin was there to cut him off with a dive. The babyfaces beat up the heels. Sting and Darby are undefeated and all of their wins have come against name teams (and also 2.0), and yet they’re not even in the top five.

PAC VIDEO- HATED IT!
This was overly-artistic crap. I just don’t buy that the angry Pac we see all the time has either the inclination or the patience to come up with, get props for, and then spend time filing a video like this.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS MATT HARDY- fine
Matt thinks he needs to focus less on others and more on himself. He said this with Private Party standing right behind him. They had great “can you believe this guy?” looks on their faces.
Andrade showed up and said the wanted to make a business deal with Matt. They both said that they loved money, and Matt agreed to talk with Andrade, but not in front of the cameras.

INTERIM AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Sammy Guevara(c) (w/Chris Jericho) vs. Daniel Garcia- 6.75/10
Eddie Kingston was also at ringside.
Sammy Guevara hit a terribly botched CrossRhodes. Other than that and the bad-looking GTH on the finish, this was actually pretty good. 2.0 came out and took out Jericho and Kingston, which set up a great nearfall for Garcia with a roll-up grabbing the tights.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
2.0 attacked Guevara after the match because that’s what they do. Jericho and Kingston beat the crap out of them (mostly Jericho with his baseball bat). The Kingston got mad at Jericho for no discernible reason other than that the booker wanted this show to end with those two mad at each other and teasing that they could start to fight at any moment.

A terrible show from AEW. Absolutely terrible. This was one of those shows where their lack of attention to detail and logic was on full display. As great as last week’s show was, this one was the total opposite.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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