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Rampage - HOLIDAY BASH - 12/25/21


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The issue with Sammy’s reign and solo act is, he is a fucking terrible babyface.

He’s flashy, arrogant, has an extremely pretty boy punchable face. That works great as a little shitbag heel but Sammy the face was never really believable.

It’s beyond time to split the Inner Circle up anyway. Jericho is bulletproof and can do whatever, give P&P their (loooooong) overdue run in the tag division, and do the turn with Sammy. 

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1 hour ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Splitting groups up for no reason is very WWE. They can be an affiliation, do their own thing, and have each other's vack when needed. That is how I view the Inner Circle and I think it's such a refreshing take on running through group ideas. There's no reason to tear it apart.

The Pinnacle winning that match wouldn’t have been breaking them up for no reason, it would have really elevated the Pinnacle as the dominant stable in AEW. And it would have once again shown that stipulations really matter in AEW which is still a young company.

Not breaking up a stable that was past its usefulness might have been a novel idea but in practice it killed all of the momentum Sammy and  Proud and Powerful had built up on their.

The Inner Circle is now an anchor around the necks of the younger talent it was supposed to elevate. Not breaking it up when it had run it’s course has been a misstep.

And what’s worst of all about it is that it was just for a stupid angle that ended with Jericho going over a non-wrestler and really did nothing to even elevate Ethan Page or Scorpio Sky. 

 

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This is just one man's opinion, but I agree with everyone saying Inner Circle has run it's course. I also agree with the people saying Inner Circle doesn't have to break up. Because I'm playing both sides. (Its Always Sunny is the best lol).

I think it would do PnP & Sammy a world of good to stop presenting them as Inner Circle members. You don't have to break up the group. Just phase out the Inner Circle mentions. Phase out the IC leather vests. They all already have their own music. The only way there has to be an on screen break up is if you have a good story for it with a purpose. Like if all along they had a lose backbone of an idea that Sammy has a fall from grace, snaps and turns on Jericho & takes The IC away from him then cool. But if you don't have a story in mind, just phase it out. Don't erase it. Let the characters stay friends. Hell even if PnP or Sammy turn heel, down the line Jericho can still do a run in to save them. They are boys. They're friends. But on screen they don't have to be stuck in one singular story.

I really do love the presentation of Hook. But it's way too early for him to jump to no selling Rikishi Drivers. Taz wasn't doing the total no sell of Bam Bam Bigelow's offense in his second match. Then again Taz was built up with dominating wins for awhile (once he went from a beast of the forest or whatever to an MMA guy). This was match two for Hook. Wayyyyyy too fucking soon to A) let anyone get offense on him and B) him to be no selling a 350 pounder's Piledriver. I don't have anything against the trope in theory, but you need to build to it for it to make sense. Just jumping from stop 1 to step 13 was jarring. You take the Piledriver no sell out and I am fine with it. Replace the Piledriver with a different move that he doesnt sell if you must. Something lower on the totem pole, like a DDT or a Back Suplex would have been fine.

I like Cody winning here. And I was very surprised they did a title change on a taped show and it hadn't gotten spoiled for me. Pretty surprising in 2021.

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Surprising ending to Sammy's title reign. In the build I figured for sure Ethan/Scorpio involvement. Didn't see that coming, but as a Cody fan I gotta love it. Three time! 

Hook's entrance felt proper big time. The no sell was so Taz that I loved it and wasn't bothered by it at all. 

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My two cents are that it wasn't the worst thing in the world in the context of the match. Hook hadn't taken much offense yet. And he really hasn't in his career in general, so you can make rationalizations. There's hierarchy too and other things. It's worse to take a move like that from Hobbs than from the younger Bear. It's worse to take it from Miro than Hobbs. Etc. The worry probably isn't that he did it in a match like that but that he'll be chasing the pop (and he definitely got a pop for it) for the next couple of years and will be doing it all the time. It's one of those things that has to be really situational.

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20 hours ago, Dog said:

Someone said it before, but stables in AEW are like MMA gyms. People might come in and out, but gyms don't "break up" and start fighting each other.

Lol, we obviously don’t frequent the same gyms.

I feel like Sammy, Santana, and Ortiz would be better off if the Inner Circle split up and those three could turn heel.  Pretty much everyone in the IC works better as a heel and only Jericho seems to be staying over as a babyface.  Not really sure why the group needs to exist as a babyface unit, particularly since they tend to get taken off tv whenever Jericho takes a break.  

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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

So Taz reads the board?

Remember that time we started talking about Chris Candido for the first time in years, and then the next week Taz randomly brought Candido up while commentating? 100% coincidence.

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On 12/26/2021 at 8:39 PM, MKERyan said:

The issue with Sammy’s reign and solo act is, he is a fucking terrible babyface.

He’s flashy, arrogant, has an extremely pretty boy punchable face. That works great as a little shitbag heel but Sammy the face was never really believable.

It’s beyond time to split the Inner Circle up anyway. Jericho is bulletproof and can do whatever, give P&P their (loooooong) overdue run in the tag division, and do the turn with Sammy. 

Ultimately Sammy is best as a baby right now because he has the blog. It's not quite BTE, but it's still an asset to AEW as it has given guys like Fuego and Angels the ability to get more over.

In modern wrestling, 99+% of wrestlers are switches when it comes to heel/face - even if they're (significantly) better one way than the other.  Sammy is a long-term bet - just because they're using a face run to elevate him (to some extent) doesn't mean they're investing him as a babyface. The shortish title run (or possible failure as champion if you want to run wild) supports that, it plants seeds for an eventual heel turn - and I would imagine that would indeed involve a feud with Jericho. So I think Sammy's arc is just fine. Just as Miro has an arc, and Page has had one, and Jungle Boy has one, among others. 

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To me, Sammy’s run never really got a chance to get over because he was immediately sucked back into that awful Inner Circle-ATT feud and made to look like a lame smirking toady to Jericho. He had, what, 3 defenses, all of which were good and brought out the idea that he was taking on challengers from all over.

 

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8 minutes ago, JLowe said:

To me, Sammy’s run never really got a chance to get over because he was immediately sucked back into that awful Inner Circle-ATT feud and made to look like a lame smirking toady to Jericho. He had, what, 3 defenses, all of which were good and brought out the idea that he was taking on challengers from all over.

Agreed but Cody is so hot rn. So hot. Cody.

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Just watched.

I’m in the minority here in being meh on Jungle Boy. He’s fine, his theme song is incredibly over, I hate his signature arm drag. This match just made me think that Isiah Cassidy is better than JB at the same age and level of experience and I would rather have Cassidy get that push as a midcard heel. Solid match.

Hook’s no-sell of the piledriver pissed me off. Let it affect him for a few seconds, let Bronson heel it up and waste time, then let Hook sneak up on him. I guess the crowd liked it but it killed the match for me and reminded me that I really hated Taz as a wrestler for the same reason.

Statlander-Hirsch was very good and I like that they run these little angles on TV (and Dark) for the lower/mid-card women.

Main event was really just so much of what people love/hate about Cody in terms of theatrics and everything just being over the top. I said above that didn’t think Sammy was given the title run he deserved. It was a solid match, had a lot of issues with Sammy being a baby face who is better as a heel, and Cody getting mostly heel heat while wrestling like the top baby face, so hard to really tell a cohesive story. Cody kicking out of the GTH did work within the flow of the match as it was a Hail Mary by Sammy, and that situation can go either way and work story wise. Cody hitting 3 CrossRhodes is pretty heelish, right?

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