AEW Rampage Review - May 13, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn def. Kip Sabian, The Butcher and The Blade

It's great that The Acclaimed's act is still over, but personally, I've grown tired of their silly shtick with Gunn. I suppose if it's not broken then don't fix it, but I've gradually lost interest in The Acclaimed since they dropped the AEW World Tag Team Championship a few months ago. I wouldn't mind seeing them run it back with FTR one of these days. Nonetheless, this was a perfectly serviceable six-man tag team match, but it didn't really seem to accomplish anything other than kill television time.

Toni Storm def. Allysin Kay

Kay has made a few appearance for AEW in the past. Primarily, she has been teaming with Marti Belle for the last few years in the NWA. She also had a brief return run in IMPACT a few months ago. This was likely another one-off for her. I wouldn't mind seeing her signed, but unless she's a part of the Ring of Honor roster, would she ever get any television time? This was unsurprisingly well wrestled given the talent involved. The Outcasts pick up another win that doesn't mean much.

IWGP Tag Team Champion and NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Champion Kyle Fletcher def. Action Andretti

We found out on Wednesday's Dynamite that Fletcher is next in line for an opportunity at Orange Cassidy's AEW International Championship, so much like his match on ROH TV this week, this was designed to give Fletcher a credibility-boosting victory. He's quite skilled and this outing served as a nice reminder for that. As for Andretti, he's already irrelevant despite beating Chris Jericho less than six months ago. Go figure.

The Hardys Agreed to Face The Gunns

The Gunns are still members of The Firm unless I missed something (though I'm aware they haven't appeared alongside the rest of the group in ages), so I hate that The Hardys are still technically still involved with The Firm. This was not a very good segment, largely because the crowd has no incentive to care about the stakes (Ethan Page working for Matt Hardy if The Gunns lose). Any heat The Gunns had from their tag title run seems to be gone due to their extended absence from programming.

The Mogul Embassy (Swerve Strickland and Brian Cage) def. The Dark Order (John Silver and Alex Reynolds)

The Embassy are definitely an improvement as allies for Strickland than the two people he had before, but I still hope a significant singles push for him is on the horizon and he isn't just relegated to the tag team ranks. This was decent, but Dark Order don't belong in the main event of any of the main shows at this point, so it was difficult to take them seriously here. Keith Lee and Dustin Rhodes emerged afterward yet again. Is the Lee vs. Strickland rivalry ever going to be resolved?!

Overall Show

This was easily one of the most skippable editions of Rampage in recent memory and absolutely not worth checking out. Rampage has been preempted so often lately that I'm shocked the numbers aren't lower than they are. The action on this show was average and nothing stood out in a special way. From what I understand, Rampage is going to become what Dark was once Collision gets going next month. It may have already begun based on what we got on this episode.

SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews