AEW Rampage - October 8 2021

[Timbo Slice]

Punk better be careful with Bryan Danielson’s son. 

[SirEdger]

Looking forward to that and Ricky Starks vs Brian Cage.

[gordi]

I have only two questions.

1) What night is it?

2) What does that mean?

[joeg]

Lio Rush's entrerpreneur  gimmick is not good. It doesn't make any sense. Its so similar to Big Money Matt Hardy which also isn't very good

 

[gordi]

Loved seeing the Anaconda Vice as the finisher, and a piledriver to set it up!

Laughed out loud when the announcers started out the show with a  "What a great time to be a wrestling fan/The best time!" exchange. I concur!

 I.have to agree: Rush's new gimmick is not distinct enough from Big Money Matt.

G1 less than 5 hours away!

I love days like these.

[MoS]

Catching up on this now. The crowd seems much hotter than the NYC crowd was, which helps a lot. I know they really want Rampage to be an A show, but the tired crowd makes it tough. 

[MoS]

Thought Punk v. Garcia was the best match Punk has had since his return. Garcia is the real deal. 

Count me in as not feeling Rush's new gimmick either. That entire segment reminded me so much of bad scripted WWE segments, not good.

[MoS]

Lucha Bros v. Acclaimed really overdelivered as a fun spotfest. Fenix is absolutely incredible.

[MoS]

Last match was good. Hope Starks is okay, he seemed genuinely knocked out. He should be the guy who dethrones Sammy Guevara as champ, he is ready. 

[Matt D]

Punk vs Garcia: I'd liken this a bit to Bret vs Savage from 87, with the heavy limb control but don't take that too seriously, as I haven't seen it for a while. Very full match that never wore out its welcome. Both guys looked great. The early grappling maybe needed 10% more tricked out stuff but it was gritty and close and compelling without being cooperative. Transition worked really well as you bought Punk was closing in on the GTS at that point and then they went another ten minutes around the leg. I love watching a wrestler try to work with a major limitation and have it shape everything he can and can't do and Punk really leaned hard into it. It changed his game completely and some of it, like the staggered duck into a neckbreaker reversal looked great. That timing isn't just savvy; it's athleticism too and Punk deserves credit for it. The pepsi twist also looked great. Sharpshooter was protected because Garcia was so worried about positioning that he couldn't lean back. I bought Punk being so full of adrenaline that he could hit the springboard clothesline after the dive. I don't always buy that but I bought it here in this situation. Piledriver felt like a big moment. I like how he didn't even try to go for the GTS after that. Really liked this one.

Acclaimed vs Lucha Bros: theoretically I was going to like this more when it settled down to heat but it stayed a sprint after that. Acclaimed looked lost moving Penta around and there was basically no heat even after the boom box spot before Fenix came in. All of Fenix' stuff looks great as always (well, not the double cutter) but if they didn't have time for this, they should have kept it off the show and done another Danielson interview or something. Or a feature on the MMA guys so that people know them more if they're not fans. It's ok to have an empty spotfest but don't waste the Acclaimed on it. This match helped no one. I've got no use for this noise and I can't imagine watching another Lucha Bros match anytime soon unless they're up against FTR or Bear Country or Comoroto or someone who can really base for them and slow down the match.

Jade vs Skye: This is what it should have been. Skye got an A for effort as almost everything Jade ended up doing was a counter to something Skye tried, so she drove the action. But of course it made Jade look like a worldbeater.

Cage vs Starks: I liked the pool shot to the head and how hard Starks had to work for a lot of his offense. It's nice to have an annoying heel that you kind of have to begrudgingly give it to. I haven't seen Cage since Lucha Underground and he does know how to work big against a smaller, weaker opponent. I really don't know about that fall away slam onto the trash can lid as a hope spot though. It looked brutal because it was a little sloppy. I do like Starks playing to the crowd's clapping for the babyface. It's good to acknowledge what they're doing. I didn't realize that they actually DID Send Hook. Jericho being into that and trying to strategize with Taz was really enjoyable. Taz was channeling Rumble 92 Heenan on commentary. "There's your gamangiri (or however you spell that) right to the nuts" was such a good line. Past that fall away slam hope spot, this basically worked for me.

[NintendoLogic]

Jericho on commentary has entered so bad it's good territory for me. I popped when he put Punk over as a trained MMA fighter as well as for his Grapplers Anonymous dad joke. By the way, is there any rhyme or reason to when Punk wears trunks and when he wears longboys?

[strobogo]

Rampage sucks. The energy is just way off for every show except the live ep with Punk's debut. Do Dark and Elevation feel the same way? It reminds me of 2016 TNA for some reason.

[SirEdger]

7 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Jericho on commentary has entered so bad it's good territory for me. I popped when he put Punk over as a trained MMA fighter as well as for his Grapplers Anonymous dad joke. By the way, is there any rhyme or reason to when Punk wears trunks and when he wears longboys?

I know that Punk actually did a Twitter poll recently to ask if he should bring back the longboys or stick with the trunks but I don't know if it's related to that match or the previous one with Hobbs (as he wore the trunks for that one)

[El-P]

9 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

I popped when he put Punk over as a trained MMA fighter as well as for his Grapplers Anonymous dad joke.

He's clearly on the side of cheesy jokes and the world is all better for it since he's going head on with them.

Daniel Garcia & 2.0 are such a nice addition. From basically nowhere they are now featured regularly and rule every time.

The Acclaimed got exactly what they deserve at this point. I don't see any improvement. Back to Dark and really, they can do jobs for the Gunn Club as far as I'm concerned, I don't see shit in them above JTTS level.

I love Jade's presentation, everything about it. Not sure this kind of squash is the way to improve, but then again, having a match with Thunder Rosa sure is.

I'm gonna lose my shit if the Lucha Bros opponents are whom I think they could be... This is the stuff we need.

[funkdoc]

On 10/9/2021 at 5:19 AM, Matt D said:

I've got no use for this noise and I can't imagine watching another Lucha Bros match anytime soon unless they're up against FTR or Bear Country or Comoroto or someone who can really base for them and slow down the match.

This right here sums up one of the biggest cultural divides between PWO and the rest of wrestling fandom, i find.  This is the only place i've ever seen with people who actively want wrestling to be slower.  Among my other friends who watch, the reaction to this match was more along the lines of "I'm glad the Acclaimed are getting opportunities like this, because they can keep up with teams like the Lucha Bros but can't hit that level on their own yet."

That's not meant as a criticism, mind you - stuff like this is part of why i find your writeups so interesting!

[El-P]

40 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

This right here sums up one of the biggest cultural divides between PWO and the rest of wrestling fandom, i find.  This is the only place i've ever seen with people who actively want wrestling to be slower.

I'm not sure everybody agrees with this sentiment either on here. And really, the idea of "reigning in" and "slowing down" the Lucha Bros is simply not getting what they are all about and how you can have the greatest matches with them. They are maximalists luchadors and they are not working their best stuff in the constraint of the "classic" southern tag-team formula (and wanting every tag-team match to be worked that way is simply a very narrow and reductionist view of pro-wrestling, and "less is more" is an empty cliché). Which is why FTR actually did not work that well with them (the match was still really good, but nowhere near as good as you'd think on paper because they did not compliment each other the best) while they had the greatest of all matches against the Young Bucks (who also had the greatest of all matches against FTR and Page/Omega, because they can do whatever the fuck they want and excel at everything, which is why they are the GOAT). 

[strobogo]

The tag title match was sloppy as fuck and it had nothing to do with it being too fast. It was in fact the slower parts that were the most disjointed and bad looking. Also The Acclaimed aren't particularly good in the ring.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

I finally got around to this episode this morning.  Would agree with the Garcia match being the best of Punk’s so far in the comeback.  Much like Bryan using the Cattle Mutilation as a finish on Nick Jackson, I liked Punk using the Anaconda Vice to beat Garcia.  It’s good for the hierarchy.  Garcia has been killing it every weekend against a variety of opponents and it has been really fun to watch.  He has a lot of potential and I hope he gets to keep spreading his wings all over the country for a while longer yet.

Liked Starks/Cage, too.  The rest of the show was pretty much just filler to me but when it’s a 60 minute wrestling show being watched on DVR, it’s pretty hard for anything to be too offensive, at least for me.

[Matt D]

Wrong thread.

But i will say it's been interesting to see Garcia on the indies vs AEW in what part of his main eventer act he keeps and what part he tampers down to stooge and play the hierarchy up more.

[NintendoLogic]

36 minutes ago, Zoo Enthusiast said:

I liked Punk using the Anaconda Vice to beat Garcia.  It’s good for the hierarchy.

I thought it was more Punk needing to use the anaconda vice because he couldn't properly execute the GTS due to the damage to his leg, but that interpretation works too.