AEW Rampage Review - December 6, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada def. Mark Briscoe in a Continental Classic Blue League Match (Non-Title)

Briscoe is obviously going to be one of those guys in this year’s Continental Classic (a lot like last year’s) that takes mostly losses, but that didn’t make this any less great. This was the best Okada has looked in some time and Briscoe was clearly motivated to get him to raise his game. Okada winning was a foregone conclusion, but this exceeded my expectations in being a lot of fun.

ROH World Champion "The Learning Tree" Chris Jericho and Bryan Keith Attacked Matt Cardona

It was revealed on Thursday's edition of ROH TV that Cardona will challenge Jericho for the ROH World Championship at Final Battle later this month. Yes, I'm well aware that everything about that sentence sounds incredibly random. This served as additional hype for the match and it was thankfully quick and painless. The heels stood tall over Cardona, who will have the chance to retaliate when he appears on Dynamite this coming Wednesday (likely to set up a match with Keith).

AEW TNT Champion Daniel Garcia def. The Beast Mortos in a Continental Classic Blue League Match (Non-Title)

This was similar to the opener in that I didn't see Mortos as a true threat to Garcia, but he went in there and had a hell of a performance, anyway. This was strong stuff from these two with Garcia going over as he should have while Mortos looked credible in defeat. You can't ask for much more than that. By the way, is Garcia not going to defend his AEW TNT Championship until the Continental Classic is over?

The Vendetta def. Ella Elizabeth and Freya States

Deonna Purrazzo and Taya Valkyrie have been going by The Vendetta for a little while now. The original belief was that Purrazzo would be forming a faction, but we haven’t seen her attempt to recruit anyone other than Valkyrie to my knowledge. They work well as a team, but what’s the endgame supposed to be if Purrazzo can’t win on her own when it matters most? This was so quick that it’s easy to forget it even happened.

Ricochet def. Komander in a Continental Classic Gold League Match

Komander will be replacing Juice Robinson in the Continental Classic. Komander has as much of a chance of winning the whole thing as Robinson did, but at least every match he has is bound to be a banger. This was a small preview of that. I actually expected him vs. Ricochet to be slightly more chaotic, but it was a fun outing, nonetheless. This was a must-win situation for Ricochet coming off his recent losses to Konosuke Takeshita and Claudio Castagnoli.

Overall Show

Needless to say, you will not find a better edition of Rampage in 2024 than this one, maybe even longer than that. I wasn't sure if we were going to get any Continental Classic matches on Rampage this year (especially with the show reportedly being cancelled soon), but they went all out on this episode and delivered three top-notch matches. Even the Jericho segment served a purpose. This was a real pleasant surprise of a show.

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