AEW Rampage Review - May 20, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

House of Black def. Fuego Del Sol and The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Preston "10" Vance)

I would love to know why AEW keeps putting Fuego in the ring with House of Black. He sells well for their offense and whatnot, but we've seen it several times already and I'd be content if he never had another match with them again. As for Dark Order, Uno and Vance have teamed up a time or two recently on the Dark shows and they work well together as partners, but Uno is dead in the water without Stu Grayson. This was essentially an elongated squash, but I don't know that it needed to be as long as it was.

Shawn Spears def. Big Damo

Spears has been calling himself "The Giant Killer" as of late in preparation for his Steel Cage match with Wardlow, which will happen next Wednesday on Dynamite. He was advertised as facing a "giant" and the former Killian Dane was the last person I figured would be his opponent. I don't think I've seen him anywhere since he was let go from WWE last June, so that was a fun surprise. Granted, it was over in under two minutes, but it served its purpose in giving Spears a much-needed win to make him look somewhat legitimate (even though the outcome to his clash with Wardlow isn't at all in doubt).

Kris Statlander def. Red Velvet in a Women's Owen Hart Cup Quarterfinal Match

Velvet is so much better in the heel role and her in The Baddies in a natural fit. I'm just shocked AEW didn't turn her sooner. As for Statlander, it's weird because the change of character has been refreshing for her, but she also comes off as generic these days. Maybe that will improve over time. She and Velvet had a competent contest and Statlander advancing had to happen. Post-match, Anna Jay made the save for Statlander and Ruby Soho, which sets up Jay to challenge Jade Cargill for the AEW TBS Championship at Double or Nothing. It's beyond random and makes little sense, especially considering Jay hasn't been on TV in what feels like forever.

Sammy Guevara, Tay Conti and Frankie Kazarian def. Dan Lambert and Men of the Year

I say it almost every week, but anything involving the AEW TNT Championship picture continues to be among the worst stuff on AEW TV at the moment. What's worse is that there is officially no one likable in this angle. I thought Scorpio Sky was slowly turning face, and then he betrayed Kazarian last week. It looked like Kazarian would be the sole babyface, but then he seemed to align himself with Guevara and Conti, who are terribly unlikable as characters. The best thing to come out of this segment is that we're officially back to having one TNT title belt with Guevara and Kazarian destroying one of them here. This was a waste of time otherwise.

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley) def. Matt Sydal and Dante Martin

Dante losing his brother Darius to injury for a second time is good news for Sydal, who has something to do now that he's reunited with Dante for the foreseeable future. The duo are fun together, but they didn't stand a chance against Danielson and Moxley. Blackpool Combat Club continue to steamroll through the competition, but it may have made more sense to put Danielson in there with Eddie Kingston considering they were the ones teasing tension on Dynamite and teaming up would've given them a chance to iron those issues out before Double or Nothing. Danielson reportedly got his foot stuck in between the ring and the ramp as the show went off the air and appeared to be hurt, so hopefully he'll be fine.

Overall Show

I've been enjoying the earlier start times for Rampage and I wish the show would start before WWE SmackDown permanently, but the start times constantly changing surely isn't helping the ratings. All in all, this was a solid show, yet one you don't need to make time for (which tends to be the case with Rampage more often than not). They set some stuff up for Wednesday's Dynamite and announced more matches for Double or Nothing, so at least the hour wasn't entirety skippable.

SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews