AEW Rampage 10/21/2022 Match Ratings and Commentary
(Credit: AEW)
Here’s where we landed with this week’s Dynamite from Cincinnati. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.
AEW Rampage - 10/21/2022
The Acclaimed def. Varsity Athletes to retain the AEW World Tag Team Championships: ★★
Hook def. Ari Daivari to retain the FTW Championship: ★
Willow Nightingale def. Leila Grey: ★
Orange Cassidy def. Preston Vance and Rush to retain the AEW All-Atlantic Championship: ★★
(Credit: AEW)
Show Highlight—
Orange Cassidy/Preston/Rush. Normally I’d defecate over the logic of promoting an angle and match for weeks to then insert another wrestler to muddy the waters. For some, this will seem like a convenient cop-out. I’ll take it as Tony seeing this for its lameness and pivoting to a better attraction. It started sloppy and all over the place but had a solid conclusion. Orange Cassidy throwing the backpack into the ring like it’s Jake’s boa constrictor made me smile. Take what I can.
What Worked—
Max’s rap. Great as always. And the commentating crew added gravitas when mentioning Daily’s Place was where The Acclaimed made a name for themselves to give this a little extra boost.
I love this Varsity Athletes team; if FTR indeed does get the title match nod, they can feed FTR perfectly well before the title match at the PPV and then go on to have a featured match for themselves at the ROH PPV in Dec.
PAC/Kingston. That’s a damn strong pairing, a potential match of the night sleeper for Full Gear.
Stokely’s sell. It’s like that one look of Stokely’s perfectly encapsulated the audiences’ response to Matt Hardy in 2022. Genius reaction.
Willow is All Elite. I’m a sucker for whenever a wrestler gets these little moments to announce they signed. It’s touching for them, and makes the company itself look like a big deal. Glad there wasn’t a huge beat down of her by Jade to shit on the moment more than the interruption was.
What Didn’t Work—
Hook’s opponents. We all love Hook. As does the crowd, clearly. But at this point, you can start to make the argument that his ceiling for the foreseeable future is only going to be as high as his opponents are on the pecking order. If you’re at a level where a heel is trying to buy your contract, you’re not important enough for Hook anymore. He needs someone bigger. What about Lance Archer?
Show Cringe—
Jade’s motivation. Admittedly, I’m reaching. This was a middle of the road show that was leaning up but nothing god awful. Just had to call out why (in kayfabe) would Jade not hijack the show from the start like she alluded to on Dynamite? Clearly, in real life, The Acclaimed have to start the show to get a rating, but still. Again, I was happy that she didn’t beat up Willow after having her nice moment of being announced as All Elite, but why wouldn’t her and the baddies kick her ass and just let her go? And why did Jade just get up to leave to fight off the wrestling trainees security guards right after saying she wasn’t leaving? Just off logically.
(Credit: AEW)
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