Well, it's the last day of the month so may as well power through a quick Rampage to get to my first batch of month-end goodness.
AEW Rampage
June 30, 2023
The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson) w/ Alex Reynolds and John Silver vs. The Wingmen ("Pretty" Peter Avalon and Ryan Nemeth) w/ Cezar Bononi
Third Rampage in a row I'm opening up with The Dark Order as they continue to mow their way through jobbers to look more serious ahead of their match with Blackpool Combat Club on Dynamite.
More or less a one-sided affair with the heels impressively selling their asses off for Dark Order here. Bononi tries to get involved by Reynolds and Silver thwart his attempts, as Uno and Grayson finish Avalon off with The Fatality for the win.
After the bell, Nemeth is slid into the ring to get a Fatality of his own. And then the big man Bononi is impressively given one as well. We haven't seen the Dark Order look this imposing since 2020. Maybe they'll give the BCC more of a run for their money than Hangman thinks (narrator: or not). The group all do their signature claw gesture as we go to commercial.
***, 69% overall rating
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Roderick Strong vs. Tony Deppen
Booking Rampage really is a breeze sometimes. Scan my roster, find someone "important" I want to book and give some reps, scan through my list of "already in the ring" jobbers and enhancement talent to see if someone could be of use.
Picked Tony Deppen for the task as I felt like their stats would mesh well. Apparently was wrong here which surprised me, both guys have really nice brawl and technical. They still pulled a Perfectly Acceptable rating but nothing to write home about.
Alas, Deppen is also a vacuum of overness so that probably didn't help. Either way, he's here to make Strong look good and put over his shit. Strong wins with the Death by Roderick and that's that.
**3/4, 68% overall
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CM Punk and Samoa Joe hype video building to their clash on Collision tomorrow. Naturally this pulls a rating somewhere in the 90s as I continue to use videos to artificially bump up the fact that the wrestling itself is often just for enhancement purposes so the network doesn't cancel me.
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TBS Championship: Kris Statlander (C) vs. Penelope Ford w/ The Bunny
Last week, Stat defended against the Bunny in a good match, but got jumped by Ford afterwards. Today it's Ford's chance to get her some as the champion takes on all comers.
I.....did not realize how bad Ford's stats were in this data. Because yikes, this was the worst rated match I've had in this save. I mean with that said it could've been way worse, but yeah the bar is quite high in this universe. I didn't realize but if you have a bad match and read the match results, Scott Keith will say stuff like "Ford hits a crap dropkick" and whatever, basically telling you the match sucks. Case in point, the TBS Title lost image in this match. It's hard to have an image-losing title match in this game.
Anyway, Stat avoids Bunny interference and wins with the Big Bang Theory. After the bell, Ford and Bunny double team her (there aren't enough zeroes for what I'd pay for THAT double team
) and Thunder Rosa runs out for the save. Rosa has come in to save the woman she's been targeting for a title opportunity. In theory this is building to a tag match that I might go through with despite Ford's showing here, just for the sake of the story. We'll see.
**, 65% overall
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Bryan Danielson is standing by with Claudio Castagnoli, building to tonight's main event.
DANIELSON: "Forbidden Door might be in our rear view mirror, but the Blackpool Combat Club have come out of it learning some valuable lessons. Jon Moxley reminded everyone why he's one of the toughest sons of bitches on the planet, and I went toe-to-toe with the so called best in the world.
But my loss on Sunday will not be in vain, the Blackpool Combat Club enjoy being pushed. We push each other to the limits every single day in training. We push ourselves to be the best.
So tonight, Claudio steps into the ring with a man many others consider to be one of the best.
Chris Daniels, you've done a lot for us in our careers. You're a legend in this business. You're much more skilled than those clowns in the Dark Order that want to fight us next week. You're damn sure more reputable than those amateurs in The Elite. We don't want to hurt you. But tonight you're in the wrong place, wrong time."
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"The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels vs. Claudio Castagnoli
Come on, just look at those names. Is there any doubt that this is gonna rule all kinds of ass?
Sure enough, it does! Danielson joins commentary and tries to refrain from letting his inner wrestling fan geekdom come out as Claudio and Daniels just put on a clinic in the ring. Given the squash-ish nature of the other three matches I'm seriously imagining this one being given the last 20 minutes or so of an hour-long broadcast, just let 'em cook.
Anyway, after captivating the audience with Daniels pulling off a number of surprise nearfalls, a brutal uppercut stalls his moment. Ricola Bomb and that's all she wrote, Claudio gets the win. Danielson hops in to raise his hand in celebration as we go off the air.
****1/4, 86% overall rating
80% overall show rating