Here’s where we landed with the Rampage edition of Quake By The Lake. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.

Show Highlight—

Garcia and Danielson’s face-off. Garcia’s explanation of idolizing Danielson gave weight to the moment in their match when Garcia showed hesitancy when he thought Danielson got another concussion. Danielson lured Garcia into the BCC by demonstrating why he has the killer extinct and Garcia still hasn’t gained it, even though he has all the promise in the world. This is another one of AEW’s program’s that has teeth between PPVs. Let these two dance again months or years from now, with Garcia going over Danielson—which Bryan will surely allow—to be AEW’s ZSJ/nu-Bryan. Also love that Garcia continues to dress like a Wahlberg brother from the mid 90s.

What Worked—

Announcing matches differently. Too often AEW relies on poor Excalibur seemingly doing a line of Bolivian marching powder before bleating out the match line-up for the next week’s television before the main event. The cards were announced more organically, either in-ring or in the midst of a confrontation backstage.
Orange Cassidy stealing Mark Henry’s line.
Danhausen doesn’t win. That may piss people off actually, but I like that Danhausen's not getting unrealistic victories and has been squashed more or less when he’s wrestling, preventing a possible backlash against him by lumping him in with Orange Cassidy as too much of a (good) comedy thing.
Swerve In Our Glory’s backstage promo. Swerve and Lee acknowledged that it doesn’t make sense that Private Party are challenging the champs per their ranking so at least they acknowledged it. Keith Lee made a subtle, sneaky point to reference that no ranked team will step up. Me thinks that’s the way to get FTR to challenge them at All Out.

What Didn’t Work—

Tay’s last name. Maybe I missed it but I don’t recall hearing why they changed it (assuming it was the name of her ex-husband or maiden name or whatever). Why wouldn’t she in kayfabe take Sammy’s name? It’s a bit of a fucking nothingburger to kvetch about, but you can’t rip on WWE continuously for changing names idiotically on a whim then not explain why you did it.
Let Hook speak.
No build to All Out.

Show Cringe—

Not a single match felt essential. As much as we bash WWE for the presentation of their overall product, you can’t say their fanbase thinks of Smackdown as a B show any longer. This week’s episode of Rampage featured younger and newer talent, which is all well and good and smart to prepare for the future, but your audience is telling you they don’t want a B show and that they’re thinking this show has been rendered skippable by the company itself.

AEW Rampage 8/12/2022 Match Ratings:

NJPW G1 Climax 32 Night 16 Match Ratings: