AEW Rampage Review - August 19, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Dustin Rhodes Answered ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli's Open Challenge

Castagnoli last defend his ROH World Championship only two weeks ago, so I'm glad they're not wasting any time in getting to his next title defense. I assume we'll be seeing more of this until Ring of Honor starts running weekly again. Rhodes wasn't the first name I would've expected to answer the open challenge, but I'm glad he did because that should be a real interesting matchup. This was a solid verbal exchange to set it up for Wednesday's Dynamite.

AEW World Tag Team Champions Swerve In Our Glory def. Private Party

I know Swerve In Our Glory are "giving" champions, but this had no business being a title match when Private Party did nothing to deserve it and aren't even ranked. In fact, FTR have technically been the number one contenders for the better part of the year and have yet to receive a shot at the straps. Make it make sense. This was good while it lasted but underwhelming for a title match. I hope The Acclaimed get the title shot at All Out with FTR being busy, but I don't know how likely that is.

FTW Champion Hook def. Zack Clayton

Clayton cutting a promo beforehand was his best bet to get people to care about him. Despite the heat he garnered (unless it was piped in), it didn't work for me, but I applaud his effort, nonetheless. Clayton had a less-than-zero chance of winning here, so it was more a matter of how quickly Hook was going to win. Sure enough, it ended up being seconds, as it should have been. I'm not sure why they bothered to advertise this in advance, but at least it didn't last longer than it needed to.

Buddy Matthews def. Serpentico

It was said that because of Hook vs. Clayton being so short, this served as a "stand-in" match, which was an excellent touch. AEW did something similar on the post-Revolution episode of Dynamite earlier this year. This, too, was a squash, though longer than a few seconds. To make it worthwhile, Miro attacked Matthews afterward to continue his feud with House of Black. Matthews was accompanied by Julia Hart, who you'd completely forget was a part of the faction unless you watched the Dark shows.

Athena def. Penelope Ford

Ford has been off AEW TV all year with an injury, and yet the crowd barely reacted when she came out. That was sad. This was another relatively short match dominated by the commercial break, so there wasn't much to it. The focus was on the post-match angle with Jade Cargill and The Baddies attacking Athena and destroying the wings she wears to the ring. I assume it won't be long before Jade vs. Athena for the AEW TBS Championship is made official for All Out.

Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta and Chuck Taylor) def. The Trustbusters (Ari Daivari, Slim J and Parker Boudreaux)

Cassidy feels like the king of Rampage at this point. I swear, this is the third or fourth main event he's had on the show in the last month or so. I understand Tony Khan is really trying to establish The Trustbusters as a threat, but they're nothing more than random trio to me and I'm glad it was Best Friends who advanced. This was an average main event and the action got more enjoyable down the stretch. I appreciated Boudreaux getting some shine before his team ate defeat.

Overall Show

Even with two title matches and a tournament quarterfinal match, this show felt completely inconsequential, which has been a recurring theme for Rampage recently. It was a far cry from the episode that aired one year ago tomorrow featuring the AEW debut of CM Punk. There really isn't anything must-see about Rampage at this point. It's an easy hour of wrestling to digest and it flies by, but if you missed this edition, you didn't miss much.

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