BRM Reviews the 5/6/2022 Rampage (snore)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/6/2022 Rampage (snore)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 8th, '22, 21:39

TONI STORM & RUBY SOHO vs. JAMIE HAYTER & DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD (w/Rebel)- 6.5/10
Thank G-d this is the opener. If I had to see another promo segment with these four, I would have just shut the show off.
The match was perfectly fine for an opening tag on a one-hour show, but absolutely not something that justified the thousands of promos that they did to hype it up.

THE PRODUCTION TRUCK HOOKS EDDIE KINGSTON’S PHONE CALL UP TO JERICHO’S HEAD-SET, AND ALSO TO THE TV AUDIO FEED- snore
Kingston’s wife was crying because of the fireball, and so because of that Kingston will make Jericho suffer. This was a blatant ploy for pathos.

TONY NESE & MARK STERLING PROMO- meh
They build up to make it seem like Nese is going to challenge Hook, but they have done this so much that you knew it wasn’t going to be Hook. Instead, he challenged Danhausen. Why are we doing this in Nese’s home market?

J.D. DRAKE vs. HOOK- squash
Hook won. Jericho was annoying on commentary. Speaking of annoying…

DANHAUSEN TRIES TO RECRUIT HOOK TO BE IN HIS CORNER AGAINST TONY NESE NEXT WEEK- bad
Hook responded by shoving Danhausen. Danhausen had brought Hook potato chips as a birthday present. This sh*t is dumb.

LEXI INTERVIEWS FTR- very good
Holy sh*t, someone who recently turned babyface actually ACKNOWLEDGED THEIR PAST WRONG-DOINGS!

OWEN HART FOUNDATION WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFIER: Yuka Sakazaki vs. Riho- 4.5/10
Riho is returning from a shoulder injury suffered against Britt Baker at the first Battle of the Belts. If they had spent sixty seconds on a video package with Riho talking about her hard road back, it might have given me a rooting interest… but they didn’t, so I have no reason to care who wins.
Excalibur noted that she is wearing black instead of her usual white and pink, and suggested that (not in these exact words, of course) that maybe that means she’s a heel now. You know… because the real world works via symbolism.
Riho’s knee got worked over, but she stopped selling it. Sakazaki waited WAY too long to get her shoulder up after a knee strike, and it looked TERRIBLE. Riho won with a quick roll up after eating a bunch of shots to the face.

SHAWN SPEARS PROMO- bad
A promo starting off with stereotypical stupid “heel claiming credit for their now-babyface former friend’s success” stuff would have been bad enough, but Spears has ZERO credibility at this point, so sitting there while he claims to be the “giant-killer” and Wardlow’s “kryptonite” feels like AEW maliciously wasting my time.

DAN LAMBERT & MEN OF THE YEAR PROMO- okay
He’s from Baltimore… but he hates this place now. Ethan Page says that the mixed tag match they agreed to (himself & Paige VanZant vs. Sammy Guevara & Tay Conti) is no longer taking place because if Sammy Guevara doesn’t keep his word, why should they.
Frankie Kazarian came out to demand that Scorpio Sky give him the title shot he promised him in exchange for stepping out of the way and letting Sky take his shot. Ethan Page was rude to him, but Scorpio Sky basically said “I am going to be a babyface now,” so not only will he give Kaz his shot next week, but he also told Lambert to stop wearing the other title (though in the process he claimed Tay Conti was sleeping around backstage, and hypothetical slut-shaming isn’t really a good start to a babyface turn). The words and emotions here were decent (well… Kaz’s and Sky’s were, anyway. Page was not), but like with FTR, I am left wondering WHY this person has decided to make this change.

JUNGLE BOY JUMPS RICKY STARKS AT THE COMMENTARY TABLE- This felt very heelish of Jungle Boy. If there is a larger story being told here with Christian steering Jungle Boy in a heelish direction, then this was good. If not, it was a babyface assaulting someone for no good reason (just because you argued doesn’t mean you should attack someone), and is yet another one of those all-too-frequent occurrences in AEW where the characters’ actions are driven by the booker’s need to do an angle for a match rather than for any internal reason.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- meh
Takeshita was fine, Sonjay was clown, and Lethal was a little too cartoonish.

KONOSUKE TAKESHTA vs. JAY LETHAL (w/Sonjay Dutt & Satnam Singh)- 7/10
This was a really fun match. Giving Takeshita a visual pinfall here was a bad idea. All it does is hurt Lethal. Takeshita doesn’t need to be protected because you just don’t have a pushed spot for him right now.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine… until the end
The heels go after Takeshita. The Best Friends came out to make the save but got beaten down. Then Samoa came out… and security and referees rushed out to hold him back. So the others can fight but Joe can’t? Once again, AEW fails to have an in-universe reason for why things that suit the booker’s needs are done.

Yet another meh episode of Rampage. Even more skippable than most.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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