The SmarK Rant for AEW Rampage – 12.02.22
Taped from Indianapolis, IN
Your hosts are Jim Ross, Excalibur & Tony Schiavone
Darby Allin v. Kole Carter
Darby beats on Comoroto with Sting’s bat and then hits Cole with a dive, before slugging away in the corner and following with a dropkick. He goes up and Cole shoves him off to the floor and powerbombs him on the apron, which is the HARDEST PART OF THE RING. Thanks to the AEW tradition of people having their names embroidered on their ass, I finally learn that in fact it’s “Kole Carter” and not “Cole Karter” as I initially thought it was. Either way it’s a dumb name. Roger Ebert actually had a rule that there’s never been a good movie with a character named “Cole”, which is something I’ve used in my everyday life more times than I can count. Carter runs Darby into the stairs and puts the boots to him in the ring. Wait, we’re five minutes into the match and no one has made a witty reference to TWO DIMES yet? He was on NXT, you know. Little known fact. Carter continues beating on Darby in the corner, but misses a charge and Darby clips the knee before walking into an elbow. Carter tries a powerbomb, but Darby fights out and gets the Code Red for two. Darby goes up and Carter cuts him off and brings him down with a falcon arrow for two. Back to the top, but he misses a 450 and Darby hits him with a Scorpion Deathdrop and finishes with the Coffin Drop at 8:30. Basic Dark match here. ** I still have no idea what the upside with Carter is supposed to be.
Meanwhile, Keith Lee’s interview with Renee is interrupted by Shane Taylor, who challenges him to a tag match at Final Battle. So Swerve sidles in and apparently Keith will trust him yet again. Yeah, there is zero chance I’m bothering with that show.
The Acclaimed join us for their promo, and having them on a taped show is always a potential problem because Max’s rhymes are going to be two days out of date. Like here, where he takes the shot at Balenciaga but of course had this been fresh, he’d have just gone with the “Kanye West is a Nazi” angle instead. So Anthony Bowens announces that they’re fighting champions and they want the best. So naturally this brings out the Gunn Clubb and the Jarrett crew, but Daddy Ass clarifies that he was looking for FTR. Well apparently they better get it done by April.
Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal v. Private Party
Team TNA double-teams Kassidy and Jarrett slugs him down, but Private Party comes back as Quen hits a dropkick on Jeff in the corner for two. But then Jarrett gets a cheapshot on Kassidy and stops to strut while Satnam deals with Matt Hardy outside and Lethal takes out Kassidy. What exactly is the functional purpose of Matt Hardy and his team still “belonging” to Stokely Hathaway? It happened, they forgot about it for two months, and then suddenly brought it up again so that Matt could make funny faces at Ethan Page as a payoff. Jarrett chokes Kassidy out on the ropes and Lethal gets two, then adds a suplex as Fite takes a break. Back with Quen making the comeback with the Silly String, but he misses a 450 and the heels put him away with an awkward combination of the Stroke and Lethal Injection at 7:20. *1/2
Meanwhile, Saraya sits down with Renee to talk about Full Gear.
Athena v. Dani Mo
Athena lays her out with a forearm and suplexes her for two, but picks her up and allows Mo to fight back with a rollup for two. So Athena blasts her with another elbow and finishes with a lungblower at 1:30.
Meanwhile, Juice Robinson throws out a challenge to Samoa Joe. That should be interesting.
Speaking of interesting, they’re already hotshotting Acclaimed v. FTR for the tag team titles on Dynamite this week. I was not expecting that, I’ll say that much.
All Atlantic title: Orange Cassidy v. QT Marshall
The pre-match promo finally clears up the question we all had: CAN you bring axes to the ring for a lumberjack match in AEW? The answer is of course “no”. Orange immediately gets tossed and tries to fight off the lumberjacks alone, and then he gets tossed to the other side, where Ethan Page sends Matt Hardy to the back to keep him from helping the Best Friends. So I guess that whole thing is building to Ethan Page and Matt Hardy as a payoff, which is certainly a choice. Speaking of choices, apparently former ECW vampire Kevin Thorne is one of the lumberjacks, which is not something I was expecting to see on national TV in 2022. Back in the ring, QT mocks the pockets, but Orange comes back with a splash for two. So the Factory runs in and the Best Friends chase them out. Orange tries the DDT and QT tries to counter into the cutter, but Orange gets a rana and DDT. The Factory saves QT from the Orange Punch, but QT goes for a piledriver on the apron and Danhausen CURSES him to save. And indeed, Orange comes back with the Beach Break, but Kip Sabian interferes this time and QT gets the cutter for two. But then Orange finishes him off with the Orange Punch and Beach Break at 9:13 to retain. This was fine. **1/2 And then the House of Black materializes during the post-match brawl and beats everyone up again, but notably they let Ortiz escape without touching him. But then they beat him up anyway. Well there goes that theory.
I know I mock this show for being easy to skip a lot, but THIS was easy to skip. Nothing really good in the ring or terribly interesting, although Athena continues to be 1000% improved in her new role and I do enjoy watching her beat on enhancement geeks. As for the rest, I can take it or leave it this week.