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AEW Friday Night Rampage


Hannibal Scorch

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I’m assuming he’s trying to create a buzz, but he’s certainly at risk of having egg on his face.

Another fun Rampage, but it still feels utterly inconsequential. If they want it to be viewed as an A show, they need to have more newsworthy happenings on there. Outside of Punk’s debut, and Christian pinning Omega the show has lacked major happenings. 

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I don’t think it is viewed as an A show, the evidence you have posted. It’s an extra hour, and they know it’s audience is gonna be around half given the time slot. It’s just a quick fun Friday night show, usually with a gimmick match to keep people tuned in, and stop the live crowd leaving early at the Wednesday taping. 

Edited by Louch
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They aren’t going to come straight out and say it’s a b show as then it gets treated like one. That they front load the matches you need to see to start the show, then try and keep you on with a gimmick till the end, with filler in the middle shows it’s place in the aew priorities 

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Nothing like a few weeks break from it to really appreciate how shit Jericho is at the desk. This show may have been his worst one so far. It felt like he spent the entire night just screaming nonsense, taking both Taz and Excalibur completely off their game. Get Ricky Starks back ASAP.

Isn’t Jericho’s shitty tour starting soon? Fingers crossed we get a big injury angle at the hands of ATT next week and he goes away for a while. A Jake Hager heel turn doesn’t feel out of the question.

Another breezy, fun show. It’s mad that CM Punk essentially stole Bryan Danielson’s idea by debuting first and mostly wrestling young guys on the B show late at night for his own amusement. Whilst you have to assume Punk will eventually move up the card and get involved in some proper angles I could watch at least another month of him having these great little matches where he gets to showcase how he can wrestle any and all styles.

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1 hour ago, Louch said:

I don’t think it is viewed as an A show, the evidence you have posted. It’s an extra hour, and they know it’s audience is gonna be around half given the time slot. It’s just a quick fun Friday night show, usually with a gimmick match to keep people tuned in, and stop the live crowd leaving early at the Wednesday taping. 

While I won’t dispute that it feels like inessential viewing, I would dispute that the intention is to frame it as such. CM Punk is yet to wrestle on Dynamite, for example - this big, presumably highly-paid new signing has only, so far, wrestled on Rampage. He also debuted on the show.

I think it’s designed to be an extension of Dynamite, but in reality it doesn’t feel that way. Rampage feels very self-contained. They originally framed it as all-action, and all-action seems to mean little-to-no angles and lots of wrestling. But the matches feel pretty inconsequential, so even if you do want to watch it, why would you bother watching it live? Rampage is an easy watch, but I can’t pretend I’d care if it were cancelled. 

I also wonder if it’s, on the whole, been a bad thing for AEW. Hindsight is everything, but would CM Punk’s debut and subsequent matches have benefited the company more by taking place on Dynamite? Same goes for Omega/Christian. I do worry that Rampage, combined with the quarterly specials, will make Dynamite less exciting. Dynamite regularly hosts blockbuster matches, but will that still happen once they have specials to build towards alongside PPVs?

Hopefully I’m worrying for nothing. I wouldn’t be concerned if I didn’t care - I bloody love what AEW is doing right now, and I don’t want that bubble of brilliance to burst.

Edited by RedRooster
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I think you are worrying over nothing as we are used to not being allowed to have nice things. Punks matches probably wouldn’t have changed much on Dynamite as he has segments on their every week and nothing spikes anymore. dynamite is getting really good at staying level end to end regardless of what’s on. 

The roster now has dozens of potential blockbuster matches to take place over several years. They have been great so far in spreading them out, and there’s loads of people who haven’t touched even in tag matches yet. You can throw some out on tv and still have loads left for specials and ppv. Look back at the card for All Out that people where shitting on for being weak, coming out of it it’s seen as the best card in years anywhere. 

Edited by Louch
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There's a video of Tony Khan fetching out Taz, Jericho, Malenko and Jerry Lynn after the show to celebrate ECW. CM Punk comes out and makes a joke how he was forgotten about even though he was ECW champion, and honestly, it is so good to see him having fun with a smile on his face. I was never a huge Punk fan, but he looks like he's having the time of his life at the moment and it comes across through the screen.

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Tony Khan will likely be getting clowned on all next week once next Friday's ratings are out because I don't see them beating WWE in any respect up against Smackdown. Having said that, I can't get behind all the "oh, this is cringey, just concentrate on your own show!" stuff because if Twitter was around in the late 90s, the likes of Bischoff would have been all over it posting stuff like Tony posted. I will say that the Rampage card for next week isn't great if he actually wants to have a good showing in that half-hour head to head.

On Rampage: decent show. As others have said, a bit of a nothing show all in but perfectly fine. Was it just me or did they seem to be sweetening the crowd a bit? Oh, also, TNT cameras yet again catching a blade-related shot - Starks pulling his blade out of his wrist tape.

Edited by 69MeDon
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