This was another taped Rampage from Boston that was on the same night as Dynamite. Even though this was a 1 hour show, I’m not going to review the entire thing and I wanted to save the later portion for a rant and just some general thoughts since there were some things that apparently went on during Rampage, which to me weren’t surprising as well as a few future booked matches that made me shake my head.
Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston
This was a semi-finals match for the world title eliminator tournament. It also possibly was Eddie Kingston’s best match of his career, or at least in AEW. But once again you can give all the credit to Bryan Danielson. This match was pretty hot because the audience actually cared about both guys. Technically, Kingston was the heel here but they’ve blurred that line and as a result he was looked at as the underdog by the audience, which made him a favorite especially towards the end.
They tried to work an AJPW mid-late 1990’s style of a match with Kingston getting his AJPW style offense in. Excalibur and Jericho were all too happy to make reference to that promotion with the chops and nods to Kenta Kobashi and Misawa Mitsuharu. Let me just stop and say that given how Misawa died in the ring as a clinical “decapitation,” that wasn’t surprising in hindsight, I would NOT be praising that style.
They did an interesting spot where Bryan tried for the baseball slide kick, got Kingston, then Bryan attempted to launch himself off the apron at Kingston where Kingston nailed him with a punch. That part actually looked good. But then Kingston got Bryan in a cringeworthy release suplex on the floor targeting Bryan’s neck. That part I hated just because of Bryan’s neck and concussion issues. The announcers also pointed it out and given the history of injuries in AEW, I get worried every time I see things like that.
Bryan’s selling in this match was amazing. Kingston would try to get his fake Kobashi rapid fire chops and Bryan would go down to sell the damage so it didn’t look like crap. Kingston sold fatigue but his selling with the facials weren’t nearly as good as Bryan’s. They did an exchange of shots until Kingston hit his uraken back fist style hit to take Bryan down and both men hit the mat. That got the audience to give them a standing ovation.
So Kingston slowly crawled towards Bryan who had lured Kingston into a ground submission armlock with his legs wrapped around Kingston’s neck. Kingston, being the less technical wrestler than Bryan, gave him the middle finger knowing he couldn’t get out but showing what he thought of Bryan and passed out. Knox immediately called the match when Kingston passed out rather than checking the arm, which just shows how bad of a referee Knox is.
Again, Bryan is showing how great of a pro-wrestler is by still having his style but managing to work around every wrestlers’ faults and abilities. It’s really a toss up between Bryan and Punk who is the top wrestler in AEW right now. I would lean towards Bryan as having the best technical matches but Punk can have the best varied matches.
CM Punk Backstage Interview
Poor CM Punk now is the victim of an interrupted interview. But unlike every single interrupted interview this segment made sense. Eddie Kingston came in hollering and trying to get in CM Punk’s face, assuming that he’s probably jealous (kayfabe) of CM Punk being a big time star. Schiavone attempted to crawl out of the area but they actually got a mix of wrestlers and referees to break up the situation and drag Kingston out so that Punk could finish up the interview. Schiavone slunk back in and apologized while Punk yelled at Kingston that his behavior was unprofessional. So at least they rectified what generally have been nonsense segments by getting the formatting of the segment correct with Eddie slowly approaching from far away, getting in Punk’s face to interrupt and stir up an issue, others coming to take Eddie away and presumably calm him down and Schiavone returning to give Punk the last word as well as saying, “We’re out of time.” I can completely forgive everything that happened here because the segment made sense.
So as far as where this segment is leading, I presume we’ll be seeing Eddie Kingston vs CM Punk at Full Gear. CM Punk told Kingston, “You want to go to sleep again? I saw the last match.” So this is the first big feud CM Punk will be involved in to get him higher towards the card. Given what we saw with Bryan Danielson, I assume this match will be to help Kingston in the long term if/when it happens as well as give Punk more of an edge and put him into a small angle that makes the audience care about a match. Also, I still think CM Punk and Bryan Danielson have a secret pact going between themselves where they’ve challenged each other on seeing who can produce the best matches in AEW. We just saw with Kingston that he’s capable of having a good match if he’s given someone who is very over and can lead him through. So this should be an interesting one to see what Punk can do to make Kingston look good.
Matt Sydal vs. Dante Martin w/ Lio Rush
This is where my interest for the remainder of the show sharply started to drop off. Unfortunately, Matt Sydal is basically a jobber in AEW. Actually more of a JTTS. He can work but he’s floating in limbo, he’s in his late 30s and he just gets positioned lower and lower every time I see him. He reminds me of Brad Armstrong in WCW in the mid to late 90s. Nothing wrong with that but we know he’s not going anywhere and I think the audience sees that too.
But Dante Martin is going places and having Lio Rush helps a bit. This match was better than I had hoped because both men have a bad tendency to go at 100 MPH. Instead, they slowed the match down, especially Dante so that his moves stood out better and allowed the audience to process them. Also, he looked very crisp here, no flubs for the complex stuff he does which can go either way. So I liked this match for the real purpose in letting Dante shine with a person who isn’t really a good match carry type, even though he can work. Also, Dante getting the win here was great since he’s definitely going to be a future star.
The other thing to mention is that Lio Rush was supposed to wrestle with him in a tag but they said that Matt’s brother was injured. I really have no idea what happened but we haven’t seen Matt’s brother in a while. Seems like a bunch of brothers are out for that matter.
Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. vs. Abadon
This is where I flat refused to watch anymore of this show. I just can’t stand Abadon. I hate her gimmick and the fact that they attempted to make this a goofy Halloween, no DQ match made me even less motivated to give it a chance. And usually I like watching Britt Baker to see how much she improves but this was not the match for me. I saw that the table wouldn’t break and they re-attempted the spot but it just shows how dumb these planned out matches are.
Final Thoughts
There’s only one match to really watch on this show. I really enjoyed the Kingston vs Bryan Danielson match. I’m utterly convinced that Bryan Danielson probably is the best wrestler in AEW right now, followed by a close second of CM Punk. But it varies depending on the match and opponent. The thing with Bryan is he’s having more matches and more opponents than CM Punk so I’m giving him the edge. I do think CM Punk tells better stories in the ring and his segments have been better produced so far.
Now, for the “controversial” part, I read that people started to leave during Rampage. My guess is that they stayed for the Bryan Danielson match but left after that. The Matt Sydal vs Dante Martin match felt like a Dark match and got a few pops here and there but wasn’t nearly at the level of Bryan Danielson. And while Britt Baker is over, Abadon is pretty much relegated to Dark and rightfully so. She just looks like one of those troll dolls except far more disgusting and has no importance to AEW except as a freak show. I can’t even call her an attraction because I argue that she’s a turn off with her look.
I feel that probably during the “main event” people walked out because they simply do not want to watch Abadon. It goes with my belief that there are people in AEW that are hurting the company because no one wants to watch them. Also, why would they give credence to some of these people like 10, Abadon, Brandon Cutler on national TV when you can see the ratings plummet?
AEW does have their stars but they have people who just have a negative effect. Watching people like 10, Abadon, Brandon Cutler, The Bunny, Nakazawa, etc. is where I either fast forward or take a bathroom break if the match goes on for too long. They really have no business being in TV in their current state because their gimmicks stink badly. Now, either get them off TV and repackage them or fire them. I’m sorry but I feel very strongly about this situation and the ratings are proving me right.
Now, what is interesting in relation to what I just mentioned is that Tony Khan admitted that at some point there will be cost cutting measures. I think once the pandemic situation evens out, the people I have mentioned will be gone. Tony Khan has been getting better talent all the time with all the NXT wrestlers getting expunged and this influx of pro’s having better and better matches than the previous indy people.
And you can’t tell me that Brandon Cutler, Abadon, 10, Nakazawa, etc. built AEW. They didn’t. They were fodder who got lucky because of their relationship with someone and the fact that Tony Khan needed warm bodies to plug up his holes. But once you start eliminating them the shows will drastically improve, I can guarantee. With ROH effectively becoming an indy promotion and eliminating their contracts, I won’t doubt that we’ll see some solid talent coming from them soon. So the Chikara and GCW goofs will be the ones getting boot soon enough imo.