Here’s where we landed with this week’s Rampage taped from Toronto. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.

Show Highlight—

Jeff Hardy pose. I haven’t laughed that hard from such an innocuous taunt in years. Something about Ethan Page doing the silly Jeff Hardy dance toward Matt but the camera only showing Page’s back slayed me.
Page kinda got dealt a rough hand with the previous iteration of his character. He was lost in the shuffle by the association with Scorpio Sky and the dissatisfaction with what was happening with Sky’s TNT Title, the MMA guys and PVZ, and Dan Lambert sucked so much air out of any room he’s in. Because of MJF’s wrestling genius, I doubt he’d hand select Page if he didn’t see a plethora of

What Worked—

Swerve/Keith Lee breakup. I hope they don’t pull the trigger right away. This is an example of a storyline that actually should be drawn out and can be about the temptation of Keith Lee’s soul. The breakup of Starks and Hobbs and Jurassic Express didn’t exactly give us what we wanted in terms of matchups at All Out, and with a limited amount of tags, it makes sense to keep these guys together for a while.
What makes Daddy Magic’s nipples hard? What a gross line. And then Daddy Magic stole Terry Funk’s, “Forever…forever…" battle cry from his AJPW retirement. Matt Menard is a glorious turd.
Jade/Nyla feud. Jade got stale in part from her presentation. Not only can you do the undefeated streak so long before there’s some fatigue, but her character itself was bored by her own winning streak and didn’t sweat anyone anymore. Which again, is a beat that gets old eventually; why do we the audience care if you don’t care. As cliche and done before as stealing a belt is, Nyla can legit pull off humor in promos and on Twitter, and it gives Jade something to be engaged at as a competitor.

What Didn’t Work—

Rebel without a cause. The Daniel Garcia explanation for going back to Jericho’s bosom was awful—he was rebelling…Well, that was a satisfying story beat, how dare we question where this was going!
KENNY OMEGA is back! Oh shit, just kidding that was Matt Taven. Taven seems to get Sammy heat on wrestling Twitter, and perhaps I may rue the day saying this, but I dunno, I really like Matt Taven! The Wrestling Elitists saw him at a ROH show in Dearborn, MI in God, years and years ago, and I always thought he was going to make it and had a great heel demeanor.
I have high hopes for Taven and then he debuts on TV and the way the light hit his sandblasted jeans it looked like he pissed himself. Fucking hell. I’m still into seeing him wrestle with FTR, so, whatever. But what happened to the Ass Boys and FTR?

Show Cringe—

Low-level candidate churn. Here’s an archetype I wish would change in AEW, why are heel managers and stables endlessly fixated on recruiting someone clearly beneath them in status? Why wouldn’t Jose the Assistant go after a conflicted Daniel Garcia, a stable-less Brody King, or Hangman instead of Ten? What would be the contractual worth of Private Party, Ten, and Matt Hardy when they achieve so, so little?

Congratulations Sean and Emily!!!

AEW Rampage 10/14/2022 Match Ratings and Commentary

AEW Dynamite 10/18/2022 Match Ratings and Commentary