It was fitting that this week’s Rampage followed an NCAA tournament game because there was more brawling after the bell this week than there is after a Juwan Howard coached Michigan game. Let’s go see who were involved in the melees!
Honorable Mention: Dan Lambert. He’s always funny and this week he called himself the “Co-TNT Champion”
5. The Butcher. He looked way better in his match with Darby than he has before and their size differential worked beautifully and would get them a great score in GM mode of WWE 2k22.
4. Red Velvet. She finally had a solid match with no major botches! She started with a suplex on the ramp, then dounle knees inside followed by a clean standing suplex for 2. When she knocked Leyla Hirsch outside she tried to use a turnbuckle but a darker looking Kris Statlander (Statlander Oscuro?) decked out in all black pulled it away allowing Velvet to hit the corkscrew kick for 3!
3. Keith Lee. I’m once again puzzled by AEW’s handling of Lee. He got the win in the main event over Caster with the former Big Bang Catastrophy but feels like he’s taking way too much offense in his matches when he should be treated closer to Goldberg just running through people. He did get to lift Caster in the air by 1 arm, yeet him across the ring and shoulder block him so it wasn’t a bad showing, just too competitive for what Lee should be. After the match Hobbs and Starks attacked Lee on the outside once again and Caster hit him with a few boom box shots. They got him 4 on 1 inside when Swerve ran out with a chair to make the save. Swerve and Lee then shook hands, but Swerve had a mischievous smile that makes me wonder, when coupled with his backstage interaction with these 4 on Dynamite and Hook’s face reaction- if the 4 heels and he will become AEW’s newest faction in the not too distant future.
2. The House of Black. The Dark trio won a relatively quick match against Bear Country and Fuego Del Sol. The ending was a fun sequence where the heels were inside with Bear Country on the floor. Fuego drop kicked Brody King and started a comeback but springboarded into a flying knee from Matthews y while King did a suicide dive to one half of Bear Country and Black did a moonsault outside on to the other. Buddy then hit his spinning Angle Slam type finisher for the 3.
1. Darby Allin. There seems to be a common thread lately of opening matches on shows I rank being better than the main events and that continued this week. Darby v. The Butcher was by far the best singles match I’ve seen from Andy Williams and the best match period since he and The Blade clashed with The Young Bucks in a falls count anywhere match in July of 2020. Butcher got to look loke the bully here locking Darby in a (San Antonio?) Texas cloverleaf then pulling him through for a powerbomb and then locking in the cloverleaf again without ever letting go but Darby got to the ropes. Williams than crushed Darby on his back against the ring post and swung him into the barricade and steps. But Darby being Darby was able to dodge an incoming running knee and hit a Code Red off the stairs and Coffin Drop from the top to the floor for the win by countout. This was a creative finish that helped both guys and I can’t wait for the eventual Darby v. Jeff Hardy match down the line. After the match AFO got involved but The Hardys ran them off and they set up an 8 man tag for Dynamite with Sting, Darby & The Hardys v. Butcher, Blade & Private Party.
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