BRM Reviews the 11/4/2022 Rampage (bad, but at least something interesting happened)

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

BRM Reviews the 11/4/2022 Rampage (bad, but at least something interesting happened)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 8th, '22, 21:18

Your commentary team for tonight is Excalibur, Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, and Mike Tyson.

KATSUYORI SHIBATA VIDEO PACKAGE- decent


AEW ALL-ATLANTIC TITLE MATCH: Orange Cassidy(c) vs. Katsuyori Shibata- 5.75/10
I guess no one told Shibata this wasn’t New Japan, so they went to the outside earlier on and threw each other into the barricades.
Even with f*cking Shibata in the match, we still have to do a bunch of dumb Orange Cassidy sh*t. And, of course, in addition to that, we got all of the no-selling bullsh*t that made me remember why I rarely cared for Shibata matches, too.
Anyway, these two had a meh match. Even if you’re someone who enjoys both men’s bullsh*t, I can’t believe that anyone thought this was the “legendary” bout that the announcers tried to push it as. Shibata did a clean job for a comedy geek.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS TONI STORM- bad
Toni wants to know why the nice girl she became such good friends with during the pandemic became such a “bully.” I’d like to know why she is only asking this question now, even though she has been feuding with said formerly “nice girl” for about eight months at this point.
Toni says that Britt Baker is “manipulating” Jamie Hayter. T have done so many false starts with this break-up that I just don’t give a sh*t anymore.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS THE BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB- terrible
Apparently Lexi is a moron, because she asked the BCC “exactly what are your issues with Chris Jericho?”
Claudio’s response was somehow worse.
Claudio Castagnoli, the babyface former ROH World Champion who we are supposed to be so upset was screwed out of that title by Chris Jericho’s cheating, started off by saying that he can “tolerate- and even appreciate- Chris Jericho doing anything to win the Ring of Honor Championship and then defend the Ring of Honor Championship.”
And it got even worse than that:
“Where I draw the line is when Chris attacks non-wrestlers like Ian Riccaboni.” Really? So why didn’t you do anything a month ago when Jericho assaulted Bobby Cruise? (And, for added fun AEW put that attack in a commercial about how cool it is that people break the rules on Dynamite, which aired during the commercial between this segment and the previous one).
Both Danielson and Claudio cut promos saying that they wanted title shots against Jericho to get revenge on him and to save the ROH World Title from him desecrating it with his cheating… even though Claudio started this promo by saying that he could “tolerate- and even appreciate” such cheating. Regal told Jericho to pick which one of them would get a title shot.
I don’t care how good the matches will be and I don’t care how good their emotion was. These were bad promos because they made the babyfaces come across like hypocrites.

MADISON RAYNE & SKYE BLUE vs. JAMIE HAYTER & BRITT BAKER (w/Rebel)- 4.75/10
Mike Tyson was not on commentary for this match.
The jobbers beat the heels clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Hayter attacked the babyfaces after the match while Dr. Baker cut a promo mocking Toni Storm’s earlier comments. This brought Toni Storm out to try to make the save. She knocked Rebel out with a belt-shot. She got the best of the others and locked a Texas Cloverleaf in on Hayter, but Braker grabbed the belt and knocked Toni out with it. Baker then gave the belt to Hayter, and the two of them posed over Storm.

THEY SHOWED LAMAR JACKSON RESPONDING TO GETTING CALLED OUT BY CHRIS JERICHO- bad
They should have cut Jackson’s response off before the last sentence, which made it seem like it was all good fun to him and that he was enjoying a show.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CHRIS JERICHO AND SAMMY GUEVARA- mostly good
Jericho outsmarts Regal by saying that instead of defending his title against Danielson or Claudio, he’ll defend the title against both at the same time… but just to make things even, he wants Sammy Guevara in the match, too. I thought this was a clever way for Jericho to outsmart the babyfaces, but I didn’t like him explaining his plan. If he thinks there is a dislike he can exploit between Dragon and Claudio, he shouldn’t be broadcasting that fact, because all that will do is steel the babyfaces resolve to temporarily put their issues behind them (especially in a group where there is absolutely zero reason to believe that one wouldn’t then offer the other a title shot).
Jericho, of course, says that he knows that Sammy will “do the right thing” and lie down for him. Sammy didn’t say that he would. But he also didn’t say that he wouldn’t, so AEW absolutely shouldn’t allow him to be in the match!

That little bit with Sammy at the end also felt very odd and out of nowhere. Can I buy that Sammy would try to “steal” the title from Jericho? Sure. But it’s not like it’s something they have done anything to make us want to see. This feels like a spot that was meant for Daniel Garcia in an earlier version of his story where they hadn’t rushed things with him so much and hadn’t done that stupid swerve.

RICKY STARKS PROMO- meh
He’s entering himself into the eliminator tournament for a world title shot. He also said that “things are crumbling around here,” but said that he would hold the promotion together. Huh? That’s out of nowhere.
He had a good line or two, but he feels like such a non-entity at this point because he disappeared from TV for what feels like months.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS SAMMY GUEVARA- meh
He asks Sammy about Jericho’s comments before. Sammy assured Tony that “the ROH World Title will stay with the JAS.”
Daniel Garcia Sammy Guevara said that wrestling Bryan Danielson was a dream match for him, but now he wants another match against Danielson, and he wants it to be a two out of three falls match so that there will be no doubt as to who the better wrestler is.


MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- bad
Nana said nothing interesting. Wardlow dismissed the match and begged for Will Hobbs to interfere in it.

SAMOA JOE & WARDLOW vs. GATES OF AGONY (w/Prince Nana)- 6/10
The large dudes had a hoss fight.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Will Hobbs came out onto the stage to motion at Wardlow.

This was another bad episode of Rampage, although at least it was slightly more interesting than the usual boredom. If I were someone who had tuned in to hear Mike Tyson do commentary, I'd feel pretty annoyed that he only did the opener and then disappeared.
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 11 guests