AEW Rampage Review - September 15, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Lucha Brothers and The Hardys def. Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, The Butcher and The Blade

Chris Jericho mentioned this on commentary, but it looked like a damn Lumberjack match with how many people were at ringside for both teams. Worse yet, most of those people Completely ridiculous. I honestly don't know what purpose this was supposed to serve. This was fine for what it was and had a decent amount of star power, but it was too much of a mess to really matter. The Righteous stood over The Hardys afterward, so these teams will face off on Collision.

The Kingdom def. Matt Sydal and Christopher Daniels

The Kingdom are quietly racking up wins on Rampage, which makes sense if they're going to eventually challenge MJF and Adam Cole for the ROH World Tag Team Championship (and they should). Sydal and Daniels have been teaming since Ring of Honor's relaunch and were a quality team for them to beat. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about this, but it gave The Kingdom the victory they needed. I was entertained by their post-match promo, but it didn't sound like they received much heat from the crowd.

AEW World Trios Champions The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn def. "Pretty" Peter Avalon and The Outrunners

If Avalon had other partners that weren't The Wingmen, does that mean the group is officially dead? It's been months since I've seen them in action together, so I'm going to assume that's a yes. Anyway, this was all about giving The Acclaimed and Gunn another win as a trio, though the focus was on The Dark Order coming up afterward and challenging them to a singles match on Collision. I truly do not care about Dark Order chasing the Trios titles, but I suppose it was inevitable.

Aussie Open def. Lord Crewe and Damian Chambers

I'm still baffled that Aussie Open lost to Le Sex Gods on last week's Dynamite if Le Sex Gods were always going to face each other at Grand Slam. What a waste of win for them. That said, it's encouraging that Aussie Open are in the process of being built back up following their loss of the ROH World Tag Team Championship at All In instead of being relegated to ROH TV purgatory. This was a short-and-sweet showcase for them.

AEW TBS Champion Kris Statlander def. Jade Cargill

After it was reported by Fightful early on Thursday that Cargill is presumably on her way out of AEW and headed to WWE, it was pretty obvious she wasn't winning here. I have to give them credit, however, as this was a really good main event and probably Cargill's best. It also just so happened to be her swan song. I was hoping we'd get this match from them when they first went one-on-one instead of the quick angle at Double or Nothing, but I'm glad we got it at all because Cargill could have left without putting Statlander over again. Statlander has another big title defense coming up on Collision against Britt Baker. Why not build to stuff ahead of time?

Overall Show

The TBS title match was obviously the most newsworthy part of the show, not only because it may have marked Cargill's farewell from the company but also because it was a strong main event. Feel free to skip over everything else, as it was a serviceable show on the whole but hardly worth watching in its entirety. Is Rampage going to be used now to set up stuff for Collision, which currently boasts a Rampage-esque lineup this week? If so, Rampage will remain inconsequential and Collision will suffer from the same issue.

SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews