BRM Reviews the 2/19/2022 Rampage (great wrestling, questonable booking)

[Big Red Machine]

ADAM COLE vs. TEN-6.75/10
Jericho tells us that Ten is very loyal to the Dark Order because “the late great Brodie Lee brought him into the Dark Order and also gave him that mask.” And Brodie Lee also let Moxley break Ten’s arm with a chair when he easily could have prevented it by merely returning Moxley’s stolen property. Obviously, the Dark Order was an abusive cult, so I’m fine with Ten still being loyal to them because of blind, fanatical loyalty to Brodie Lee… but what I’m not fine with is the announcers not acknowledging that this loyalty was horribly misplaced and pretending that Brodie Lee the character was some sort of saint, when the reality is that the character (again, NOT JON HUBER THE REAL PERSON) was the total opposite.
The match told a good story, with Cole working over Ten’s surgically reconstructed knee and Ten working over Cole’s head and neck to try to win with the Full Nelson. The problem is that Ten is a geek so irrelevant that I often forget he exists (and I don’t think I’m alone in that), and Adam Cole is a guy AEW is pushing for a world title shot on PPV in a few weeks. Cole should not be going 50-50 with Ten, and certainly should not need to cheat to beat him.
reDRagon came out to celebrate with Cole after the match.


FACE OF THE REVOLUTION LADDER MATCH QUALIFIER: Will Hobbs vs. Dante Martin- 6.5/10
Hobbs won clean, so it’s all hosses in the Face of the Revolution Ladder match so far.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH JADE CARGILL & MARK STERLING IS INTERRUPTED BY MATT HARDY & THE BUNNY- bad
Jade is dressed in what I can only assume is the costume of The Riddler’s villainous ally, The Accountant. It was a silver bodysuit with green money signs on it, and she had died her hair green. Jade was confident, but not in a compelling or interesting way. Matt was a clown. The Bunny has done nothing to earn a title shot, but she’ll be getting one anyway because they had this backstage confrontation. If I were one of the women in the top five, I’d be really annoyed at Tony Khan for letting this sh*t happen.

THE PROFESSOR’S FIVE-MINUTE CHALLENGE: Serena Deeb vs. A Jobber- pointless squash
What did this do for any storyline or anything. It doesn’t even make Deeb look more dangerous and build her up, because she’s just beating jobbers.

MARK HENRY INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- good
I thought Jay White was very good, other than that line that he is the only person everyone in pro wrestling is talking about. He’s #3 at best, behind Cody and Keith Lee. Maybe even #4 behind Brandi. Just don’t say that sort of thing if it’s not true. You don’t gain anything from it (we tell he’s arrogant just by his voice) and it just makes you look silly.
Trent was fine.

Both Cole vs. Page and Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker for the respective genders’ world titles have been made official. During the main event we learned that the Bunny’s title shot had also been made official. So Cole is a big star and has been undefeated for months (other than the one loss which “doesn’t count”) and he declares his intention to challenge for the world title, and it takes a week and a half and two more wins for his title shot to be made official… but The Bunny, who has done absolutely nothing to earn a title shot, can interrupt a promo, and her title shot is official within twenty minutes.

JAY WHITE vs. TRENT BERETTA (w/Orange Cassidy)- 7.5/10
Let’s just get this out of the way first. In this match, Jay White was hit with a Piledriver. Twenty seconds later, he had hit his finisher and gotten the three-count. THAT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN!
Other than that, this was a really great match, but like with Cole vs. Ten, if you want Jay White to be a big deal, he should not be going fifty-fifty with a tag team guy (and not even a main event tag team, either). Even if you want to argue that they have done enough with Trent to make him feel like a credible singles threat, I’d still argue that Jay White taking this long to beat him hurts Jay White, especially in what even AEW has acknowledged will be some people’s first time seeing him wrestle. They should have cut this match’s time by half, give the remaining time to Hobbs vs. Martin, and put that match in the main evet spot. Give those guys time to impress.


This was a good episode of Rampage in the ring, but the booking was, as it often is, frustrating.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Chris Jericho- “Dante has Hobbs’ number. That’s why this is a rubber match.”
If it’s a rubber match then they are, by definition, even, and thus neither man has the other’s number.

2. Jericho claimed that this match was Jay White’s “national television debut.”
This is false, as he has wrestled on both Impact and NJPW Strong on AXS. Way to bury your partners there, Jericho.