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AEW Rampage: Grand Slam Review - September 22, 2023

9/22/2023

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By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Darby Allin and Sting def. AEW TNT Champion Luchasaurus and Christian Cage

Is anyone going to acknowledge that Allin and Sting have been undefeated as a team for the last two and a half years? That should have made the outcome to this match fairly obvious, but I enjoyed it, nonetheless. Christian's act continues to be a riot and I'm curious to see if he walks out as the real AEW TNT Champion in that three-way match with him, Luchasaurus and Allin on Saturday's Collision. This served as a nice preview of that.

Orange Cassidy, FTW Champion Hook and AEW TBS Champion Kris Statlander def. "Daddy Magic" Matt Menard, "Cool Hand" Angelo Parker and Anna Jay

Statlander has a few potential challengers waiting in the wings, but Cassidy and Hook feel directionless at the moment. I don't know what Cassidy does now that his lengthy reign as AEW International Champion is over, and Hook is back to doing the same thing he was prior to the program with Jack Perry. That said, this was a fine holdover match and the crowd was into the babyfaces. Evidently, Jericho Appreciation Society is still a thing, just without Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara involved.

Kenny Omega Saved Chris Jericho From The Don Callis Family

I'd love to know if the heat for Sammy Guevara and Don Callis here was legitimate because the crowd reaction to Callis last week was fairly tame. Guevara did well with his promo explaining why he betrayed Jericho on Wednesday night and Omega making the save for Jericho was logical because of their common enemies. Omega and Jericho vs. Guevara and Konosuke Takeshita is a great attraction for WrestleDream.

The Righteous def. Best Friends, The Hardys, and The Kingdom in an ROH World Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender's Four-Way Tag Team Match

This was complete chaos from start to finish, which kept things interesting throughout. The four teams worked well together and it helped that any of them could have realistically won. I figured we'd finally get Adam Cole and MJF vs. The Kingdom at WrestleDream, but it looks like they're holding off a little longer on that. I'm glad The Righteous are getting the shot and I have no doubt they'll make the most of the opportunity. Of course, it's all dependent on whether Cole will be cleared in time after suffering an injury on Wednesday's Dynamite.

AEW World Trios Champions The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn def. The Dark Order (Evil Uno, John Silver and Alex Reynolds)

The Acclaimed were at their most over a year ago when they won the AEW World Tag Team Championship at Grand Slam. They've largely been able to maintain their momentum since then, but the scissoring stuff doesn't do much for me and this crowd wasn't overly into their act this year, either. Part of that is due to this being a cold match because Dark Order mean nothing at this point. The match was well wrestled but it was definitely difficult to care.

Julia Hart def. Skye Blue

Hart and Blue are two women doing well in their respective roles but whose current characters I don't care about. They've both improved in the ring, but they're also treading water facing the same opponents in meaningless matches (Jay finds herself in a similar spot). This was decent, but I can't say it left me looking forward to Hart eventually challenging for the AEW TBS Championship, especially coming off Statlander's back-to-back defenses against Jade Cargill and Britt Baker.

Mike Santana def. Boulder

AEW has done an effective job with the vignettes for Santana. Now we'll see if he can find success as a singles star. I'm skeptical because AEW has such a stacked roster and there isn't enough television time for everyone. There's also plenty of people I'd like to see featured over him, but he's off to a solid start, at least. This was a standard squash for him. It was exactly what it needed to be and didn't overstay its welcome.

The Elite ("Hangman" Adam Page and The Young Bucks) def. Mogul Embassy (Brian Cage and The Gates of Agony) to Win the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship

I honestly didn't think the titles would change hands on this show. Not just because it's a taped show but also because I don't expect The Elite to make regular appearances in Ring of Honor. Mogul Embassy's weekly squashes on ROH TV got old a while ago, but are The Elite going to hold these belts hostage? To their credit, though, this was an entertaining main event that brought the crowd back to life and furthered Page's feud with Swerve Strickland.

Overall Show

This year's Grand Slam edition of Rampage was once again two hours and it was certainly more eventful than your average Rampage with a new WrestleDream match being announced, ROH World Tag Team Championship number one contenders being determined, and a title change. If you like tag team wrestling, this was the show for you. It was a solid night of action on the whole, though the crowd was clearly getting exhausted until the main event.
SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews
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