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Rampage - 4/15/2022


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Lost in all the talk of awful giants and Battle of the Belts is this: Rampage is on tonight!

TEXAS DEATH MATCH: Hangmin Page vs Adam Cole.  I hope this is as good as Page's last Texas Death match.  Is Adam Cole as good as Lance Archer at this sort of thing?  I know this feud is a placeholder until Page/Punk but I really wish they'd have put somebody else in as I really dislike the "you beat me but I get a rematch for no reason" booking. 

Owen Hart tournament qualifier jobber match: Ruby Soho vs Robyn Renegade.  Great.  I typed "Robyn" and now I have "With Every Heartbeat" and "Show Me Love" stuck in my head.  At least neither Renegade has Tweeted about licking ass tonight yet.

Blackpool Combat Club vs The Gunn Club: Oh lordy it's club on club violence.  I desperately need to see Austin Gunn, with his smug face and stupid John Wayne tattoo, bleed a lot.  Regal's boys are going to be the first ones to beat Billy Gunn and His Silly Sons and that's cool.

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8 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Lost in all the talk of awful giants and Battle of the Belts is this: Rampage is on tonight!

TEXAS DEATH MATCH: Hangmin Page vs Adam Cole.  I hope this is as good as Page's last Texas Death match.  Is Adam Cole as good as Lance Archer at this sort of thing?  I know this feud is a placeholder until Page/Punk but I really wish they'd have put somebody else in as I really dislike the "you beat me but I get a rematch for no reason" booking. 

Owen Hart tournament qualifier jobber match: Ruby Soho vs Robyn Renegade.  Great.  I typed "Robyn" and now I have "With Every Heartbeat" and "Show Me Love" stuck in my head.  At least neither Renegade has Tweeted about licking ass tonight yet.

Blackpool Combat Club vs The Gunn Club: Oh lordy it's club on club violence.  I desperately need to see Austin Gunn, with his smug face and stupid John Wayne tattoo, bleed a lot.  Regal's boys are going to be the first ones to beat Billy Gunn and His Silly Sons and that's cool.

AEW is funny because they alternate between "we keep W-L records and maintain rankings for title shots" and "all you have to do is keep doing run-ins/obnoxious promos and you'll get a title shot". Scorpio Sky, prior to finally getting his TNT title shot, mentioned this, and I think more teams should.

I will get some joy out of Danielson stiffing the shit out of Billy Gunn to get him to sell.

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I don't like that they're now booking straight-up jobbers into Owen qualifiers. (Yes, Willow Nightingale is pretty much a jobber in AEW too, but as I recall they came up with an explanation for her getting a chance to qualify.)

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7 minutes ago, tbarrie said:

I don't like that they're now booking straight-up jobbers into Owen qualifiers. (Yes, Willow Nightingale is pretty much a jobber in AEW too, but as I recall they came up with an explanation for her getting a chance to qualify.)

All the qualifiers have been jobber matches so far.  What I like less is calling these "qualifiers."  If it was a one-night tournament, sure.  But if the whole tournament is taking place match by match over time, why aren't the "qualifiers" just the considered first round?  Please note I thought this before I heard Alvarez said essentially the same thing and what that says about me I really don't know.

9 minutes ago, JLowe said:

AEW is funny because they alternate between "we keep W-L records and maintain rankings for title shots" and "all you have to do is keep doing run-ins/obnoxious promos and you'll get a title shot". Scorpio Sky, prior to finally getting his TNT title shot, mentioned this, and I think more teams should.

In kayfabe, how do the ratings even work?  Like if you're 30-1 (so 97% of your matches are wins) and you lose your title match, you're still 30-2, which is still pretty good (94%) and there's a good chance you still have a better record than the #2 guy.  Really, they should reset your rankings if you lose in a bid for a title match.  Then again, if you win your first match after the reset, your winning % is 100.  Honestly, Khan should have explained this at some point.  Or have a weekly segment listing the top contenders and their winning percentages, hosted by Scott Steiner, naturally.

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10 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

In kayfabe, how do the ratings even work?  Like if you're 30-1 (so 97% of your matches are wins) and you lose your title match, you're still 30-2, which is still pretty good (94%) and there's a good chance you still have a better record than the #2 guy.  Really, they should reset your rankings if you lose in a bid for a title match.  Then again, if you win your first match after the reset, your winning % is 100.  Honestly, Khan should have explained this at some point.  Or have a weekly segment listing the top contenders and their winning percentages, hosted by Scott Steiner, naturally.

At one point in the beginning on media interviews Cody had explained it like the College Football rankings. Meaning strength of competition and the person you beat's record being factored into how much you move up. Which is a perfectly logical explanation to me. If you're 20-0 but only beat local competitors on Dark, you don't get to jump ahead of someone 19-1 that beat 19 contracted top stars and only lost once to the world champion. They don't explain any of this on TV and leave it up to the viewer to just know all this. And that's a mistake.

But there is an internal logic and reasoning, they just never share that on TV. But they should.

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32 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

At one point in the beginning on media interviews Cody had explained it like the College Football rankings. Meaning strength of competition and the person you beat's record being factored into how much you move up. Which is a perfectly logical explanation to me. If you're 20-0 but only beat local competitors on Dark, you don't get to jump ahead of someone 19-1 that beat 19 contracted top stars and only lost once to the world champion. They don't explain any of this on TV and leave it up to the viewer to just know all this. And that's a mistake.

But there is an internal logic and reasoning, they just never share that on TV. But they should.

Cool, thanks!  But it hasn't worked that way in practice, as we've had plenty of top contenders come out of nowhere after farming wins on Dark.  Marina Shafir being the most recent.

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55 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

All the qualifiers have been jobber matches so far.

There's a big difference in my mind between a "jobber to the stars" and an actual jobber. The Bunny is clearly not a jobber. Heck, I'm not sure I'd even call her a JTTS - she's more of a midcarder.

And I thought Skye Blue had been signed and has occasionally beaten actual jobbers on the YouTube shows, which would make her a JTTS. But she's not listed on the AEW roster page, so maybe I'm misremembering.

But the important point, in my opinion, is that it makes a big difference which side of the filler matches you're on. If you get to beat jobbers you're not a jobber yourself, even if you never manage to beat any of the other people who get to beat jobbers.

To put it an 80s/90s WWF perspective - I wouldn't have blinked if Koko B. Ware or The Red Rooster got a King of the Ring qualifying match. But it would have looked strange for Reno Riggins or Conquistador #2 to be in one.

55 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

What I like less is calling these "qualifiers."  If it was a one-night tournament, sure.  But if the whole tournament is taking place match by match over time, why aren't the "qualifiers" just the considered first round?

Maybe when they started the "qualifiers" they hadn't decided yet whether the tournament itself would be single-elim or some other format? Heck, have they even officially announced that? Maybe it's double-elim or something. I don't know.

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Jobber, JTTS, either way, I appreciate the distinction but you're missing the "quality of opposition" part.  JTTS plus "wrestling someone so far above you there's no way the finish is ever in doubt" equals "this is definitely a jobber match."  123 Kid scenarios excluded, of course ? 

Koko in a KotR qualifier against Randy Savage is a jobber match.  It doesn't matter that Koko beat Steve Lombardi last week.  The first word of JTTS is jobber.  It's on the tin.

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47 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Jobber, JTTS, either way, I appreciate the distinction but you're missing the "quality of opposition" part.  JTTS plus "wrestling someone so far above you there's no way the finish is ever in doubt" equals "this is definitely a jobber match." 

Okay, but my initial complaint that you responded to was about jobbers, not jobber matches. I have no problem with the qualifying matches being lopsided or having obvious outcomes. I mean, real tournaments with seedings deliberately set things up so that you get mismatches in the early rounds. What bugs me is pure jobbers getting a shot at all, because that detracts from the prestige of the tournament.

When they announced the first qualifying match, it was pretty obvious The Bunny wasn't going to beat whoever the exciting new signing was going to be. But using somebody as relatively high up the card as The Bunny as qualifying match fodder struck a positive note with me, because it suggested this was a tournament for high-level competitors. Giving winless Robyn Renegade a shot to be in it suggests something else.

28 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Just checked the rankings, and jobber match or not I'm now excited for the possible Punk-Kaz match coming up in the next couple weeks.

I doubt we'll get that match. I suspect Kaz is being built up to get a shot at his former partner for the TNT title, not to be fed to Punk.

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It is 7PM EST and I am awake.  My body clock is slowly getting back to normal.  It has taken two days to readjust.  I hate graveyard shift.

I am digging the new mean streak that Yuta has.  Dude still needs to get some fucking boots and kickpads.  Gunn Club are at their stoogie best and are a great team to put against the debuting BCC.  It makes them so much easier to cheer for.  Yuta pins Billy Gunn clean as a sheet.  Not Colten or Austin.  Billy fucking Gunn.  How high are they on Wheeler Yuta?

Butcher kills some guy dead to remind us who he is.  I want to believe that The Butcher will provide some opposition to Wardlow, but the War Dog is going to kill that guy.

Natural vs. CM Punk.  I am all in.  

Hey!  Ruby Soho is in there against one of the Renegade Twins!  I think those are Thunder Rosa's proteges.  They have a fantastic feud going on with Madi Wrenkowski and Rache Chanel in Mission Pro.  Holy shit. the Renegade Twins are pulling the old Killer Bees swithcheroo.  I hate the Sister Abigail like most people hate the Overdrive / Play of the Day, but Ruby's looks like it might actually hurt.

I am enjoying watching Adam Page kick the shit out of Adam Cole a bit too much.  What is it about Adam Cole that makes me want to punch a kitten or set something on fire?  Cole is a really great guy, so isn't my hate for him actually the heel work doing its job?  It doesn't feel like it.  Excalubur chills my soul by reminding me that Orange Cassidy beat Cole in an unsanctioned match. Fuck.  Will this be Cole's night to win the title without Page being charged with a loss?  I sure hope not.  Both dude have the good taste to spew plasma in a Texas Death Match.  My inner ghoul is satisfied.  Did Adam Page just put a Crown of Thorns on Adam Cole on Good Friday?  FUCK YEAH~!  BY HIS BLOOD WE ARE SAVED~!

MILLION BILLION STARS~!

 

Edited by J.T.
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Man, the Blackpool Combat Club look awesome just standing there.  BCC Yuta is fucking awesome.  Billy Gunn's role as senior ass stomper who is the only one who has a chance is fun.  Austin Gunn is so awesome.  Jon Moxley is the most violent Robert Gibson EVER!  Austin Gunn is so great selling for Mox.  Yuta is great for the finish.   Oh man, the BCC is so fucking awesome.  They heat up the Butcher to be fed to Wardlow.  Robyn Renegade was good and NOTICE that Ruby Soho lays it in more because Toni Storm and Jamie Hayter are setting the stiffness bar.  Soho makes Renegade look like a million dollars.  Nice Backdrop Driver by Ruby.  That should be her finisher.  BATTEN TWINS FUCKERY!  Ruby still wins!  The Main Event!  I await blood!  Oh man, Adam Page is laying it in.   COLE BRINGS THE BLOOD!  Cole selling the toprope body slam was awesome. This match is fucking great.  JESUS CHRIST.  What a finish!  That was fucking great.

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Fun opening match with Yuta being over AF and getting chants over fucking Danielson and Mox. Loved Austin doing Roman Reign’s OOOOOOOHHH AAAAAAAHHHH at Mox.

 

Main event started a bit clunky but got pretty fun as it went on and made Hangman look like a badass by putting fucking Jesus Christ Baybay through a table for the win.

He’s been looking very dominant for a while now, I’m ready for the Punk feud as I feel they’d gel very well together in the ring.

 

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5 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Did Adam Cole just put a Crown of Thorns on Adam Cole on Good Friday?  FUCK YEAH~!  BY HIS BLOOD WE ARE SAVED~!

MILLION BILLION STARS~!

 

OH MAN!  I DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING REALIZE!

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9 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Did Adam Cole just put a Crown of Thorns on Adam Cole on Good Friday?  FUCK YEAH~!  BY HIS BLOOD WE ARE SAVED~!

MILLION BILLION STARS~!

 

 

3 minutes ago, DEAN said:

OH MAN!  I DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING REALIZE!

 

2 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Exactly.

For your viewing pleasure.

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1 minute ago, The Natural said:

 

 

For your viewing pleasure.

The fact that they didn't show the table until Cole is going through it makes this a million times more awesome.

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Loved that main event, unbelievably cool finish. I liked that it was a little different from the Archer match in terms of pacing (and plunder used - no trash cans or Singapore canes this time around).

I know I've been kinda crapping on the lineup all week so this is the last time I'll do so, but its gonna be tough for BOTB to follow that for the live crowd

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