This week’s Rampage is about as standard as you expect from AEW’s C Show. Really fun opener, good but unremarkable matches across the rest of the card and small bits of story nuggets sprinkled throughout. The crowd died down a lot after being super hot for the opener and everything was all a bit skippable. Watch the opener and miss the rest.
Tonight on AEW Rampage, we will see an exciting triple threat as El Hijo Del Vikingo, Penta and Kommander go at it! Elsewhere on the card, Skye Blue takes on Marina Schafir and Trent Baretta takes on Daniel Garcia. Let’s get at it!
GREAT El Hijo Del Vikingo vs Penta El Zero Miedo vs Kommander– Watch Match Here
Lucha wrestling can be incredibly good fun, and these are three of the best luchadores in the world for a reason. Some of the sequences in this blew my mind, and I have never seen some of it in my 12 years of watching wrestling. With that said, on our rating scale I have to dock it for a lack of storytelling and a little for psychology, as well as a couple of fundamental issues such as a spinning kick that missed Kommander by about 5 yards. Not a perfect match, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t unbelievably impressive.
Result: Penta by Pinfall via Fear Factor
David Sheldon WR Star Rating – 3.75 Stars
Team Jarrett say some things about Eddie Kingston but sound a lot like a swarm of hornets until Ortiz is in some way called out. Struggled to wrap my head around exactly what was being said here
SQUASH The Gunn’s vs Matt Sydal and Cristopher Daniels
Decent match here though the crowd weren’t especially interested. Sydal looked good in his little sequence but it was a nothing match really just to get The Gunn’s over. They’re getting a lot of short matches so I hope soon they get a chance to show what they can do again in the ring with a longer encounter.
Result: The Gunn’s by Pinfall via 3:10 To Yuma
Too Short To Rate
GOOD The Gunn’s Promo
Literally a 2 line promo here saying they’ll beat MJF at Full Gear for the tag straps. Nothing to say on this really, delivered well but mostly superfluous.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3 Stars
Danhausen is returning this we…next week. For whatever reason, this absolutely made me HOWL with laughter. I just think Danhausen is hysterical!
Everyone has dissention. Who needs cohesive teams anyway?
GOOD Skye Blue vs Marina Schafir
The crowd could not have cared less about this match, but the action was good enough between the two. I like Marina’s offence and Skye is always a fun watch, and the two had decent chemistry. It’s not fantastic and was clunky early on, but overall I think it did it’s job well enough.
Result: Skye Blue by Pinfall via BackCone
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3 Stars
As this is my first Rampage review, this is the first time I get to talk about the pre-main event Mark Henry promo. It’s just a meme at this point isn’t it but I do quite enjoy seeing it every week
GOOD Daniel Garcia vs Trent Baretta
A good but not extraordinary main event that again suffered from a bad crowd and it all being a bit heatless. The action was clean and pretty strong, but overall this was more a functional main event than anything to really get the blood pumping.
Result: Daniel Garcia by Submission via Crossface
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
GOOD Daniel Garcia Promo
Garcia calls out MJF for a title match. Well delivered promo from Garcia but let the man build before you give him a title match. The way AEW books their titles baffles me it really does, which kinda undercut the whole promo to be honest.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
Overall…
This week’s Rampage is about as standard as you expect from AEW’s C Show. Really fun opener, good but unremarkable matches across the rest of the card and small bits of story nuggets sprinkled throughout. The crowd died down a lot after being super hot for the opener and everything was all a bit skippable. Watch the opener and miss the rest.
Matches: 0.5/1 Stars
Show Structure: 0.5/1 Stars
Atmosphere: 0.5/1 Stars
Storytelling: 0.5/1 Stars
Production/Theme: 0.75/1 Stars
Overall Rating: 2.75/5 Stars
Photo Credit: All Elite Wrestling – November 3rd 2023
For inquiries about the rating criteria check out the article announcing the new system here:
