I held off on posting last night’s AEW Rampage results because I wanted to watch and compare the TV presentation to the live experience I had as I was at Wednesday’s event & taping in Sacramento, CA. So here’s what happened…
TV:
Sammy Guevara beat Action Andretti.
The Acclaimed beat 2 jobbers. Squash.
Mark Briscoe announced a Reach For The Sky Ladder Match on 3/31 for the Ring Of Honor Tag Team Championship at their next PPV. Mark holds half the title, his late brother Jay Briscoe held the other half. The first team in the match was announced and it’s Lucha Bros.
Konosuke Takeshita beat Preston Vance.
Riho beat Nyla Rose.
Live experience:
Rampage taping began about 20 minutes after Dynamite went off the air (had to change the ring skirts, graphics, etc.). We also got entrances for Jim Ross and Chris Jericho (again) for commentary. Second Judas Sing Along of the night! The Acclaimed squash was taped first. Quick squash against two guys working their second matches of the night (you’ll also see them on this Monday’s Dark Elevation on YouTube, which was taped before Dynamite began). Afterwards, they hung around and posed for fans with signs at ringside. They are ridiculously stupid over.
The Mark Briscoe segment happened. I was excited to see him in person as I’ve been a longtime big fan of The Briscoes. Big pop of course for yet another Lucha Bros appearance (they were also on Dark Elevation). I was almost right in front of the stage and pyro all night. When those flames shoot out, when you’re that close YOU FEEL THE HEAT!
Riho-Rose was next. Great match that made for a solid TV main event and they got a lot of well-deserved time. Everyone loves Riho, she’s the perennial underdog because of her size (not even 100 pounds) but her personality and fighting spirit makes her very easy to root for (and she has 17 years experience despite only being 25…yes, that means she debuted in Japan at age 8. EIGHT!). This was a rematch between the first 2 AEW Women’s Champions-Riho beat Rose to become the first champion and Rose later returned the favor. No Vickie Guerrero amidst rumors she might be done with AEW (contract is about up), Marina Shafir seconded Rose. After the Paige/Saraya/Storm beatdown (TV ended here) they left and flipped off the fans in the process. My section in particular, haha.
An advertised Jungle Boy promo and all other promos/video packages and the Mark Henry main event intro were not shown to the live crowd so I first saw them on TV. That was perhaps the biggest difference between TV and being at the taping.
Takeshita-Vance was taped next. Another solid affair. Takeshita may not be as over as he should be due to fans maybe not being aware of his years in DDT in Japan, but he is gaining more fans with his performances and professed love of Cinnabon. Jose interference didn’t keep Takeshita from winning and Vance got good heel heat too.
The opening theme and pyro went off after Guevara & Andretti made their entrances to start the TV broadcast (entrances were streamed on YouTube). This was our live crowd main event. Another good match that ended sour for the live crowd when Daniel Garcia interfered and hid to help Guevara win. After the TV portion cut away, Chris Jericho left commentary to join Guevara & Garcia in the ring for the live crowd show-ending promo. It did not send the crowd home happy of course, but we still sent LE DEMO GOD CHAMPION off with one final Judas Sing Along. That ended the event. From start to finish the whole thing went about 4 1/2 hours (we did start 15 minutes earlier than advertised).
While TV editing and commercials obviously took away from the live experience, it was a quite good Rampage overall with what I felt were 3 solid single matches. Outside of The Acclaimed squash it’s all worth watching. Of course haters and the WWE chapter of the IWC are gonna hate, but it’s much better being able to see it live and in person because you’ll get stuff TV won’t, and it’s different presentation depending on where you’re seated. If you ever have a chance to get to a Dynamite/Rampage combo or a live Rampage, do so. Then go back and watch on TV and compare the experiences.
