Sunday, October 16, 2022

AEW Rampage (Oct. 14th, 2022): This Show, However, Did Choke



Well, they did a separate Rampage taping in Toronto and much to my surprise, TSN actually decided to air this on their actual network rather than relegate it to their shitty, shitty app. And what did AEW give the wider Canadian audience who would rather watch their wrestling on TV than on a shitty app?

They gave them Ring Of Honor... or rather, the husk of a promotion that was once Ring Of Honor before it shutdown, got bought by Tony Khan, and now "kinda, sorta" exists for some reason.

They brought in another ROH alumnus in Dalton Castle to challenge Chris Jericho for the ROH World Title, as if I'm supposed to care about this. On top of that, FTR, after disposing of another ROH stable act, gets a challenge for their ROH tag titles from something called the Kingdom, which comprises Mike Bennett, Maria Kanellis, and some other dude whose name I don't recall, but they did this act in ROH. All well and good for those who still care about ROH, but I sure as hell don't and I'm still struggling to find a reason to care.

I get why they keep ROH on the air; to give the impression that it's still alive despite not having a TV show to call their own. Honestly, the brand would've been better off if it were put on ice for the foreseeable future and when the stars align and you secure a TV slot for that product, you could bring it back then. All this is doing right now is souring me on the AEW product, which is the thing that I tune in to watch. And maybe if you focused on the AEW guys you already have - talented people that once had big runs but are now sitting on the sidelines because you're too busy bringing in new guys and not doing a sufficient job of making people care about them - maybe the ship would be run a little better.

It's a shame, too, because the show opened with a great tag match that saw Mox and Claudio beat the Butcher and Blade in a great match, Nyla Rose is actually starting to grow on me, and it was nice to see Shawn Spears get a feelgood win on TV in the main event tag, even if it's involving some ROH guys that I care little about. And this is not a knock on the talent, but rather on the booking, which has been pretty spotty as of late. I'm sorry, but one little thing that has persisted ruined the whole show for me and ended up pulling a Leafs or Jays... I honestly don't know which is worse.

Not even the Bunny could save this Rampage show.

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