AEW Rampage Review - January 20, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

"Jungle Boy" Jack Perry def. "All Ego" Ethan Page

Perry beat Luchasaurus in that awesome Steel Cage match at Full Gear and yet it feels like he's been spinning his wheels since then. His feud with The Firm and alliance with Hook have given him something to do, but neither of those things are important. On the bright side, he and Page had a super solid match. The finish was designed to set up Perry and Hook against Page and Matt Hardy (who are now getting along) for Dynamite on Wednesday.

Eddie Kingston Attacked Ortiz

Kingston and Ortiz have been teasing tension for weeks because of the mind games House of Black have been playing with them, but I didn't think they'd actually implode. To be clear, I don't think this was a heel turn from Kingston. He was simply fed up with Ortiz for talking too much crap and he couldn't take it anymore. Plus, it plays into how he has anger issues. I don't care about this angle personally, but I appreciate the attempt at progressing it.

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Brian Cage def. Willie Mack

In case you missed it, Cage and Mack had a super fun match on Monday's edition of Elevation. Obviously, they have history from their Lucha Underground days and it's been cool this week to see them rekindle that rivalry all these years later. This wasn't nearly as entertaining as their Elevation encounter, but it was still great while it lasted. It was designed to give Cage a credibility-boosting win before he faces Bryan Danielson on Dynamite.

AEW TBS Champion Jade Cargill and Leila Grey def. Jaida and Jordyn Vanity

The one positive thing I can say about what AEW has done with Cargill lately is that she's been wrestling more consistently, meaning she's finally 49-0. For a while, she wasn't wrestling regularly and thus it was taking her forever to reach the milestone. Well, her next win will be her 50th, so time will tell as to whether AEW will make it a memorable one. As for this match, it was a basic squash as it should have been, albeit not the smoothest encounter I've seen (at least whenever Grey was in there).

Action Andretti def. Daniel Garcia

Aside from two Dark matches, we haven't seen Andretti in action at all on AEW programming since he scored that upset over Chris Jericho last month. I appreciate he's at least been on Dynamite, but he needs more wins to establish his own identity beyond being Ricky Starks' sidekick. These two worked well together and had an enjoyable main event. Andretti winning to keep his momentum going was the right move, but I can't help but think how much Garcia has cooled off since the summer.

Overall Show

I've mentioned before that Rampage has seen an uptick in quality over the last month, but this felt like your average inconsequential show. There was some storytelling and stuff announced for Wednesday's Dynamite, but there was absolutely nothing must-see about this show. The opening and closing matches were well wrestled and I suppose Kingston turning on Ortiz was notable, but following a streak of hot shows (by Rampage standards), it was back to the norm this week with nothing feeling overly special.

SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews