It’s Saturday morning, and you know what that means…it’s time to recap Rampage! A surprise snowstorm in Colorado led to some equally surprising viewing habits this morning. The result is, on top of the Rampage Report, you also get a lil Side of SmackDown! We’ll touch on highlights from that show after our regularly scheduled programming.
Opening Contest: Evil Uno, Pres10 Vance, and Fuego del Sol vs House of Black
We don’t have time for entrances, as this show is packed. Fuego del Sol called out the House of Black on Dynamite, so really this is his own fault. He also ate most of the offense as a result of his lack of hubris.
Uno and Vance did get some fine looking attacks in, though. Vance had a slingshot wheelbarrow suplex with an Evil Uno kick during the slingshot part, and that’s hard to describe but looked awesome. The core strength Malakai Black had to showcase to stay horizontal for that setup was amazing!
Uno managed to get three consecutive rebound face kicks on Brody King, but to no great result. King hit Uno with a Gonzo Bomb while Fuego del Sol ate a hanging DDT on the entrance ramp, and Vance suffered an apron moonsault from Black. King won with the pinfall victory.
After the match, Death Triangle headed onto the entrance stage. Penta was left alone with a tombstone covered in a black cloth, which he dramatically revealed to show House of Black: Double or Nothing. So I guess that’s when that’s gonna happen!
Lexi Nair was then speaking with The Gunn Club and Max Caster, and we saw a clip from Dark Elevation where Anthony Bowens was injured. Lexi asked what’s next, and the trio of active wrestlers all looked to Billy Gunn for answers, referring to him as “father”, “puh-pah”, and Caster called him “daddy”, which feels about right. Billy brushed past his son to put his arm around Max, who he called son, and said that sometimes factions face adversity. When Bowens comes back, there will be a big old scissor party waiting for him.
I love this group so much. It’s funny and stupid and a delight.
FTR had a quick chat with Tony Schiavone, accepting Rappongi Vice’s challenge for the Ring of Honor tag team championships.
Match #2: Shawn Spears vs “A Giant”
Spears brought in Big Damo, an Irish wrestler better known as Killian Dane from his time with NXT. Dane actually got the lion’s share of offense in this match, as he was able to counter Spears’s speed with his own, and got some nice power moves off as well. It was a nice way to make the squash more of a show of Spears’s inability to hire talent he could easily destroy. In the end, a missed Vader bomb led to a knee to Damo’s face, and the C4 with Wardlow callout ended things.
Spears grabbed a microphone after the match to say that he wasn’t going to be locked in a cage with Wardlow next week; Wardlow was going to be trapped in a cage with the Giant Killer.
The Undisputed Elite apparently filmed their promo in a sewer, but it was well lit. Adam Cole thanked Kyle O’Reilly for eliminating Rey Fenix from the Owen Hart tournament and for taking Sting out as well. O’Reilly teased a fingerpoke of doom in Vegas. The Young Bucks then challenged the Hardys to a match at Double or Nothing.
Match #3: Red Velvet (w/Jade Cargill, Kiera Hogan, and Mark Sterling) vs Kris Statlander, Round 1 of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament
Ruby Soho was on commentary here, as she will be facing the winner next week. Statlander, no longer the Galaxy’s Greatest Alien, displayed some otherworldly strength at the beginning of the match, including a one handed gorilla press slam! Red Velvet recovered with some heel stuff, apologizing for missed attacks and distracting the referee so Kiera Hogan could get some cheap shots in. In the end, Statlander set Velvet up for the Big Bang Theory, but Red Velvet rolled that into a pinning predicament. Statlander was able to reverse that rollup into one of her own, and the extra leverage she put on Red Velvet allowed her to get the pinfall victory.
Immediately after the match, the Baddies headed into the ring to attack Statlander. That brought Ruby Soho into the ring, but Jade Cargill made short work of her. But THAT attack brought Anna Jay down to the ring, and the good guys were able to chase the Baddies off.
A pretaped video showed the training styles of Tony Nese and Mark Sterling, and HOOKHausen. Nese and HOOK were jacked and ready; Danhausen ate some chips and kinda hung from a chin up bar, and Sterling was still too hurt to really do much.
The Men of The Year were in the ring with Dan Lambert, and Scorpio Sky wanted his TNT title belt back. We cut to Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti outside, with the strap. Guevara threatened to murder the title with a sledge hammer if he didn’t get his intergender match with Sky and Paige Van Zant. Lambert declined, Sammy smashed. Kaz then arrived to continue the smashing while Tay and Sammy made out.
A short interview between Dr. Baker, Tony Schiavone, and Toni Storm followed, with Storm threatening to rearrange Britt’s teeth if there are any shenanigans during their Owen Hart Tournament match. Britt was tongue tied and walked off in a huff.
The main event interview with Mark Henry followed, as Matt Sydal preached peace, love, and pro wrestling as the right way to mentor a kid like Dante Martin. Daniel Bryan prefers violence in his pro wrestling - he and Moxley teach through pain and torture, and those things brought Wheeler Yuta the Pure Championship. Moxley closed with “When you enter the ring with the BCC, abandon all hope” which kinda needs to be a t-shirt.
Well, it looks like there’s been enough talk. It’s time…for the main event!
Before that, though, Jade Cargill had a quick segment to set up a TBS championship match at Double or Nothing with Anna Jay. Excalibur then crammed about twenty minutes of match announcements for the next three shows into a minute thirty.
Blackpool Combat Club (Moxley and Danielson) vs Matt Sydal and Dante Martin
Lord William Regal and Jake Hager joined commentary. Regal is always such a delight to have on the mic, offering up stories and history lessons. Jericho, that catchphrase factory, let us know that the Jericho Appreciation Society is about three things: Money, Merch, and Sports Entertainment!
The match itself was actually great, the highlight of a really good hour of wrestling TV. I think we all expected BCC to squash, but that wasn’t the story they wanted to tell. Sydal got to show off a lot of the innovative offense that got him signed by AEW a few years ago, and he also got to take a hell of a beating. The Combat Club was in control for the most part, but after the last commercial break Dante Martin was able to tag in and do his high flying offense for a hyped crowd. He went up for his finisher, but Danielson followed and hit a superplex that rolled into the Labelle lock, but couldn’t get the submission before Martin inched his way to force a rope break. Moxley was tagged in, and Danielson applied a triangle sleeper to Matt Sydal while Mox just laid into Martin with a ton of trapped elbow strikes. Moxley finished things with the Paradigm Shift.
As the Blackpool Combat Club headed up the exit ramp, the Jericho Appreciation Society attacked. Excalibur quoted WCW-era Tony Schiavone with the old “We’re desperately out of time, the tape machines are rolling!”, and the start of Warriors vs Mavericks told us we’re done here.
As I said last week, the five good things segment seems a little silly for an hour long show. To answer the more obvious question: yes, it’s worth the hour of your time. Every match, from the opener to the main, meant something and was a fun watch. The interview segments were all quick and to the point, minus the TNT title bit. I just don’t enjoy that because the booking of the title is directionless right now. But overall, a great short wrestling show.
As for our Side of SmackDown… the Usos actually won the Undisputed Tag Team Championships! I was absolutely sure that match would end in a DQ and get pushed to Hell in a Cell. Roman Reigns interfered, but a ref distraction allowed the Usos to get the victory and the titles. Sure, the shenanigans will let RK-Bro complain about the loss on Raw, and likely get their rematch at HiaC, but still! The main was a good match, and the only thing you really need to watch from SmackDown. I enjoyed Woods vs Butch, but it was quick and didn’t really progress the story or anything.
There was another amusing segment. The six pack challenge from Monday Night Raw was referenced again, with graphic and everything. The story WWE is putting forth is that Sasha and Naomi disappointed millions by forcing the main event to change, and they have been suspended. There will be a future tournament for those titles. There was also a part in this segment when the camera was on the announce table and you could almost hear Vince in Pat McAfee's ear, trying to feed him a line about the unprofessionalism that Sasha and Naomi displayed. The difference between Corey Graves and Pat, however, is that Pat doesn't need this job. He also didn't say anything at all. He just waited for Cole to finish and moved on to the main event hype. Good on you, McAfee.
I appreciate you stopping by, and would love it if you drop your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also follow me on Twitter @ElOsoPequeno, where I try to remember to post whenever I update the blog. I recap Raw, Dynamite, and Rampage weekly, and recap anything else I happen to watch. There’s also a weekly wrap up on Fridays, and I’ll do predictions before any big AEW or WWE pay per premium live events.
Next week should be pretty busy, with WWE only a couple weeks out from Hell in a Cell and AEW doing their go home programming before next Sunday’s pay per premium live event, Double or Nothing. I’ll be here to cover it all for you, you just come back and read!
Have a good one!
No comments:
Post a Comment