AEW Rampage Review - May 31, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Konosuke Takeshita def. Penta El Zero Miedo in an AEW TNT Championship Eliminator Match

AEW will sometimes (but not always) refer to non-title matches as Eliminators. They'll also refer to certain tournament matches as Eliminators, too. This was a qualifying match for the TNT title Ladder match at Forbidden Door, yet it was also referred to as an Eliminator. This company can be so damn confusing. However, the match itself was great. They were given an ample amount of time and worked really well together. I'd love to see Takeshita become the TNT champ, but I know it'll be Jack Perry.

Satnam Singh def. "Pretty" Peter Avalon

AEW is back to pushing Singh as a singles act it seems. He's had a few singles matches recently and Bryan Danielson carried him to his best match ever on Dynamite last week, but I'm still not seeing what Tony Khan apparently sees in him other than his size. He made short work of Avalon here and that was it. I don't know who they can pair him up with in a feud that will make him more interesting than he has been so far.

AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm def. Viva Van (Non-Title)

We got three enhancement matches on this show and this was easily the longest of the three. What's silly is that she was the only champion on the entire episode and a jobber was competitive with her. Unless AEW intends to sign Van (who also faced Athena on Thursday's ROH TV), then it made little sense for this to be anything other than a squash. Storm continues to act like a babyface in a majority of her matches and that also lacks logic if she's supposed to be a heel.

Kyle O'Reilly def. Jordan Cruz

Jordan Cruz is not to be mistaken with AEW's go-to jobber Jon Cruz, unless they're related and I missed the commentary acknowledging that. In all seriousness, this was exactly the type of squash for O'Reilly that it should have been before he challenges Will Ospreay for the AEW International Championship on Collision this Saturday. I believe that'll be the third title shot O'Reilly has gotten since returning and he'll obviously lose that, too, so I question if he's ever going to be anything more than a stepping stone for the bigger stars.

Rey Fenix def. Isiah Kassidy

Did Marq Quen get hurt again? I feel like we've been seeing a fair amount of Kassidy on his own lately between AEW TV and ROH TV. That would be a real shame if he's been sidelined with another injury. At any rate, this was the quality contest you'd expect from these two. Fenix winning was never in doubt, but Kassidy had an impressive performance, too. I'm just not sure what purpose this was supposed to serve since Fenix is back with Death Triangle and they've had no bad blood with Kassidy. A rather random main event.

Overall Show

The best part of the entire episode was Chris Jericho confirming during a backstage interview that he'll be stepping down from Rampage commentary going forward. Hallelujah! We got more matches than usual on this edition of Rampage, but only the opener is worth seeking out. Penta vs. Takeshita was fun and had actual stakes, but the rest of this show was total throwaway. Were three straight squashes really necessary?

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