BRM Reviews the 6/2/2023 Rampage (Other Companies' Championship Friday)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 6/2/2023 Rampage (Other Companies' Championship Friday)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 4th, '23, 10:09

It’s “Championship Friday” here on AEW Rampage, with four title match… and NONE OF THE BELTS ARE AEW BELTS.

AAA MEGA TITLE MATCH: El Hijo del Vikingo(c) vs. Komander vs. Dralistico (Jose the Assistant)- 6.25/10
That spot where they all kept splashing the match completely took me out of the match. Their timing was so off that it didn’t look anything like them trying to splash each other and constantly missing. It looked like an acrobatics routine where they were purposely trying to not touch each other. The fact that it went on for so long only made it worse.
They did flips. Yes, they were athletically impressive, and one or two of them I hadn’t seen before, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s just flips with no story, and I’ve been given no reason to care about anyone in this match.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS TEAM TNA- terrible
We were shown a clip of Sonjay pushing referee Aubrey Edwards back in January, then shown Karen Jarrett hitting Aubrey with a guitar at the PPV on Sunday. Lexi then told us that “the talk all week” has been that the whole group will be suspended.
1. “The talk all week”… except, apparently, during the two hours of Dynamite, where it was not mentioned once.
2. Sonjay did something FIVE MONTHS AGO, and Karen did something on Sunday… so they’re ALL getting suspended? How the f*ck is that fair?
3. They didn’t even seem to know about this, so 3A) what kind of disciplinary system is Tony Khan running where people aren’t even informed there are being brought up on charges, and 3B) again, how is the “the talk all week” and the five people involved don’t even know about it?
They responded like typical cartoon heels. Mark Briscoe showed up to say that he just talked to Tony Khan, and there would be no suspensions so that “we” could give “you and you” the ass-kicking you deserve. The heels demanded to know who “WE” were, and Aubrey Edwards stepped into the frame.
1. The referee should not be fighting the f*cking wrestlers, or wrestling at all!
2. Yeah, because seeing Karen Jarrett fight a referee is what people were asking for when they demanded an alternative to WWE.
3. When Mark said “you and you,” he wasn’t talking to Karen and Sonjay. He was talking to Karen and Jeff. This makes sense flowing from what happened at the PPV, but it doesn’t make sense with the framing of this segment! They showed us two clips: Sonjay getting physical with Aubrey, and Karen getting physical with Aubrey. Then Mark showed up and said that the heels are not being suspended so that they can face physical justice in the ring… and one of the two they showed us to be deserving of punishment isn’t going to have to face said justice.
Then it got worse. Karen and Aubrey had their big face-off. Karen said “I don’t see anything but air and opportunity between us,” and apparently this non-insult was enough to get Aubrey to start choking Karen. And don’t tell me that it was because Karen hit her with the guitar, because if that was enough to send Aubrey over the edge, why didn’t she choke Karen the moment their face-off started? Or even before that, when she first saw her? This all feels like choreographed sh*t for a backstage angle rather than the behavior of real humans.

TNT’s commercial for Collision referred to “the second coming of CM Punk.”

NJPW WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Zack Sabre Jr.(c) vs. Action Andretti- 7.25/10
This match has a fifteen-minute time limit, and if the match doesn’t end in those fifteen minutes, the winner- and champion- IS DECIDED BY A F*CKING COIN FLIP! That might be a worse rule than anything Vince Russo ever came up with.
Zack’s blond dye job looks horrendous. The match was great, though. Zack worked the arm, and Andretti was a very good babyface.

NJPW STRONG WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Willow Nightingale(c) vs. Emi Sakura- 7/10
Since we’ve seen her now, Sakura is dressed like a queen and laughs randomly. Willow won a great match. Her winning the title might turn out to be a very happy accident for AEW, as it gives her room to grow outside of their log-jammed women’s division.

VIDEO PACKAGE FOR THE MAIN EVENT- so short as to be non-existent

ROH PURE TITLE MATCH: Katsuyori Shibata(c) vs. Lee Moriarty- 7/10
Another great match. Shibata won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Daniel Garcia came out to have a stare-down with Shibata. I can’t help but notice that this happened on the same show on which they first announced the date of the next ROH PPV. And there has ben no build towards this at all on ROH. This is the reason why no one watches the ROH show.


This episode of Rampage was a mixed bag. The action was great, out of four matches and two segments, only one of them was really an AEW thing (and that thing sucked hard). It made this show feel irrelevant. We’re now one full week out of a PPV, and there is almost no direction.
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

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