Saturday, January 15, 2022

AEW: Rampage Review - January 14th, 2022

AEW Rampage 
January 14th, 2022
Raleigh, North Carolina


Commentators: Excalibur, Tazz, Chris Jericho & Ricky Starks 

1) Adam Cole (w/ Britt Baker, The Young Bucks, Brandon Cutler, & ReDragon) vs. Trent? Beretta (w/ Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy, Kris Statlander, & Wheeler Yuta) 

Dear god there are so many people ringside for this. It makes sense given the feud, but it’s just wild. It’s worth noting Nick Jackson is wearing a mesh top.. foreshadowing Jeff Hardy, are we? None the less, match itself here goes about how you’d expect. Cole gets the advantage early off distractions from his unit at ringside. This pairing is one we saw a decent bit in PWG so we know they have chemistry. Cole goes for a Panama Sunrise on the floor and eats a backdrop for his troubles. Trent charges Cole, but ends up going head first into the railing. Bump looked sick. This sends us to commercial. Back from commercial and they trade big moves for 5 minutes or so before The Last Shot from Cole ends it. I’m just not into the majority of the matches this Best Friends/Super Kliq-Adam Cole unit has delivered. I didn’t care for the trios match on the last Dynamite of December and this match felt about the same for me. Just.. stuff. I think Cole/Cassidy and Bucks/ReDragon will be great, but the road to it has been very dull match quality wise. Nothing wrong with this, just nothing all that great either. Best thing for me was seeing Trent back and throwing suplexes. Hell yeah. He is so underrated in singles and it’s honestly where I prefer him. Get him out of this feud and run him a TNT Title match and reign. Would be a blast. 

Match rating - **1/2

2) Shawn Spears vs. Andrew Everett

Happy to see Andrew Everett here. It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything out of him. Circa 2014-15, he was one of the hottest guys on the Indies so I’m glad he’s getting this shot. It’s not much of one, though. He gets one spot of hope then is SQUASHED. Well I hope Andy got a nice pay day.

Match rating - 1/2*

After the match, Spears cuts a promo on why Punk should be concerned about him heading toward their match on Dynamite on Wednesday. Crowd starts chanting for Wardlow in the middle of it. 

Next up, we get The Acclaimed’s music video for “GOTH PHASE” - a Sting/Darby Allin diss track and it’s fucking great. I figured it would either be absolutely shit or very good. It was good. Yeah!

3) Kris Statlander, Leyla Hirsch, & Red Velvet vs. The Bunny, Penelope Ford, & Nyla Rose

Bunny is like the queen of Rampage at this point, especially after that street fight a few weeks ago. This is all about building the hot tag for Statlander. They display the tension between Hirsch & Stat with Hirsch refusing to tag her in and it costing them the advantage. Nyla controls Velvet through the break and when we get back, Stat gets the hot tag to clear house. She puts Ford in a nasty submission. Leyla tags herself in and it costs her team the match. Big dummy.

Match rating - ** 

Ethan Page, Scorpio Sky, and Dan Lambert are backstage. Page says the reason Cody isn’t here is because he whooped his ass. Scorpio wants a title shot when Cody and Sammy “figure it out” and reminds us that he is the face of TNT. 

Ricky Starks cuts a promo at the commentary booth on Jay Lethal interfering in the Dante/Hobbs match. It’s good, but it gets better. Lethal shows up and antagonizes Starks into a FTW Title Match. Starks sells this so well and looks PISSED. First time I’ve seen some real fire from Starks in a while, it feels like. 

4) Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus) (w/ Christian Cage) (c) vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds - AEW World Tag Team Title Match

This is the first defense for Jurassic Express and a big match for the challengers, Silver & Reynolds. Quick tags for the champions early, but Silver & Reynolds use their speed and unique combos to get the upper hand. I’m talking that fuckin dive into a suplex thing that they do, yeah, that sent us to commercial and it was sick.  This was really about as solid of a secondary show main event TV tag you’ll get. After the commercial, Luchasaurus gets the hot tag and things break down. Silver & Reynolds hit their tandem moves and remind me why I want to see them in more tags, AS THEY ALWAYS DO. But the Jurassic Express pulls out the victory to retain their titles as expected. Fun match! Best one on the card.

Match rating - **3/4

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