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

Orange Cassidy def. Katsuyori Shibata to retain the AEW All-Atlantic Championship: ★★★★
Jamie Hayter and Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. def. Madison Rayne and Skye Blue: ★★
Wardlow and Samoa Joe def. The Gates of Agony: ★

Show Highlight—

OC vs. Shibata. On the Podcast, we talked about wrestlers having a reputation of a snug, realistic strikes pull back a bit too much in a new environment, and I thought Shibata was doing this initially, but the momentum picked up and he felt like the Shibata of old. Besides what Booker T thinks, absolutely nobody is clamoring for Shibata to take a goddamn headbutt and eat snug offense. Anytime the suspicion of disbelief eradicates and I think a title change can happen, I’m a happy fan.

What Worked—

Mike Tyson on commentary! My expectations were if he was slightly more audible than Art Donovan it would be a success. Derpy references aside, every cut to Tyson on commentary showed just how delighted he was with the match and how much fun he was having. Those little moments of capturing joy go a long way and you hope they translate to viewers at home. For a man with so much sadness and depression in his past, as a sports fan, I genuinely get happy seeing him happy.
Eliminator Tournament. I’m always a sucker for tournaments, even if, they’ve been done to death, it still doesn’t damper my enthusiasm for them. I could see Ethan Page, Eddie Kingston, or Bandido taking the left hand of the bracket against Ricky Starks in the final. If MJF turns heel, having him go against Eddie Kingston would be the perfect way to cement that.

What Didn’t Work—

Attendance. The nostalgist in me remembers WrestleMania IV and V’s crowds and when full and lit, the Broadwalk Hall has a great ambiance. It obviously needed to have that wonderful ceiling darkened so as to not make AEW look bad.

Show Cringe—

JAS vs. BCC continues. Longterm storytelling is great, it just has to have a story that necessitates it. Wrestling Twitter is right to call this out as a feud going backwards. If Blood and Guts was at Full Gear instead, the souring on this storyline payoff could have been avoided. I liked the idea of Jericho facing Danielson and Cesaro and counting on them destroying each other in the name of competition as his means to survive. I can get adding a JAS member on the pretext of someone to lay down for Jericho, but Jericho needed to be backed-up into a corner more to do so, and the BCC guys have been trading victories with Jericho so often it’s not landing that he’s the chickenshit heel about to be exposed. And the Sammy insertion is just stupid. Why wouldn’t Daniel Garcia be in there instead? Wouldn’t that have worked better that Jericho, the total ass, is overcompensating and thinking he outsmarted everyone? Sammy has enough go-away heat right now, and I worry for more backlash against him as backlash for this story that will not cease.

AEW Rampage 11/4/2022 Match Ratings and Commentary

WWE Survivor Series 1987 Match Ratings and Commentary