BRM Reviews the 8/26/2022 Rampage

[Big Red Machine]

AEW TRIOS CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: House of Black (w/Julia Hart) vs. Dark Order (10 & the Beaver Boys)- 5/10
Hey, remember when Adam Page said he couldn’t be the Young Bucks’ partner because he was going to be in the Dark Order’s corner because they were such good friends to him and this meant so much to them? Well, he was nowhere to be found. Oops.
They did stuff until Miro came out. Brody King and Buddy Matthews went to attack him, but he beat them up. Malakai Black the became distracted, allowing Alex Reynolds to roll him up. I don’t have an issue with Black being the one to get pinned here because we all know it was BS, and him being in the ring was necessary t prevent Miro from getting his hands on Black.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Malakai and Miro jawed while Miro made his way down the ramp. Matthews and Brody attacked Miro from behind, and they all beat Miro up. They cut to a shot of fans in the crowd clapping basically right as Darby Allin’s music started playing. If someone’s music and video start to play, show us the f*cking ENTRANCE. When a running back breaks through in a football game and has a no-doubt touchdown, they still show you him running all the way, they don’t cut to fans before the play is over. It should be the same thing here.
Sting and Darby showed up, so the heels bailed, even though they had them outnumbered. Excalibur implored us to “remember the history” and the “great rivalry” that Darby and Miro had over the TNT Title. Dude… it was ONE MATCH, and I don’t think it was more than one angle, either. This is the sort of thing that every announcer should be careful to not do, but doubly so if you’re in a promotion that is trying to show itself to be an alternative to WWE.
Excalibur is also still claiming that there is still black mist on Sting’s face from that time Malakai blew mist into his eyes months ago. Am I supposed to believe that Sting hasn’t washed his face in months, and that the rest of his facepaint has somehow stayed on?

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS HOOK- Hey, he’s talking for real now.
I know he was trying to do his thing where he tries to hide his face behind his hair or whatever, but it looked a lot more like Hook was trying to steal glances at Lexi’s cleavage. He was asked about 2.0’s promo last week, and he gave the correct response, which was that he didn’t care.
Hook left, then 2.0 showed up for some dumb comedy and yelling. Parker was almost good, but was undermined by Menard’s goofy facial expressions. These guys worked as a quirky underdog babyface act in CHIKARA, but that’s about it.

RYAN NEMETH PROMO- boring
This was intended to get the crowd booing Nemeth so that they would be hot for Wardlow to show up and defend the honor of his home town in this already-scheduled match. Jay Lethal and friends (including the Motor City Machine Guns) came out onto the ramp to scout.

Wait… apparently this is a title shot? How the f*ck did Ryan Nemeth earn an…

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Wardlow(c) vs. Ryan Nemeth- no rating, pointless squash
Wardlow squashed the jobber. He gave him seven extra powerbombs (I guess excessive punishment isn’t a thing in AEW), then pinned him with an unnecessary foot on his chest. He comes off like such an asshole.

LEXI INTERVIEWS THE AFO- meh
Andrade and Rush threatened Private Party. As I’ve said before with this story, while the performances might be good, everyone’s actions feel driven by the fact that the booker has decided to turn Private Party babyface rather than by anything any of the characters did that set up the situation.

WILL HOBBS vs. A JOBBER- squash

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
The Factory appeared on the Tron. They’ve kidnapped Ricky Starks and are actually going to take him out for Hobbs like they promised. Ogogo went to punch him, but Q.T. stopped him and said “this one is on the house” and did the punching instead, using his gold watch.
1. I don’t understand what that was supposed to be between Q.T. and Ogogo. If you want to demonstrate your services, wouldn’t you do it in your most brutal way possible, which would be giving the supposed punch-aiding weapon to the guy who already has a superpunch?
2. They do realize that the reason gold is used for coins and jewelry is that it’s soft and malleable, right? There is a reason people don’t have much iron jewelry and you rarely hear about golden or silver swords thar are anything other than ceremonial.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS JADE CARGILL & THE BADDIES- bad
Leyla Gray, a loser who has never done anything, decided to rudely interrupt Jade Cargill, so Jade rightly kicked her out of her group and told her to f*ck off.
Then Jade shooed Lexi away as well, and Lexi tool the microphone with her… yet we could still hear Jade just fine. Jade told Athena to come get some… and Athena just happened to be right there, and blindsided Jade. Security quickly broke them up. No one here came across as likable.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Ruby Soho & Ortiz vs. The Jericho Appreciation Society (Sammy Guevara & Tay Melo) (w/Angelo Parker)- 6/10
If only Ortiz and Ruby had an ally who could come to ringside with them to counter the heel’s friend who will undoubtedly interfere. Too bad they haven’t beaten into our heads that these two are close to Eddie Kingston or that Ortiz doesn’t have some sort of tag team partner. Oh well.
They did stuff. The heels won when Anna Jay interfered. This feud has been going on for six months now, despite having what felt like it should have been the blow-off three different times.

FOOTAGE OF CM PUNK FROM BACKSTAGE ON DYNAMIE AFTER THE TITLE UNIFICATION MATCH- very underwhelming. He and the trainer decided that things weren’t good. The location of the camera made this feel very staged.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- okay
I still have no idea what “history” Dustin is talking about between himself and Claudio. Both guys were okay

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli(c) (w/Wheeler YUTA) vs. Dustin Rhodes (w/Arn Anderson & Brock Anderson)- 6.5/10
Caprice Coleman joined the commentary team for this match. Jericho left the commentary table when Regal showed up. Caprice noted that these two had wrestled each other forty-one times, but never in a singles match. I looked up their history, and most of it was at house shows and/or in battle royales. Claudio and Hager as the Real Americans vaguely feuded with the Rhodes brothers in the late 2013. That’s about it.
Claudio won clean in eleven minutes. This was not world title quality, and wasn’t given the time to be, either… and it’s exactly the sort of thing that they can’t afford to do if tey wan to make the ROH World Title feel important.

Another unremarkable episode of Rampage.