AEW Rampage Match Heavily Edited Last Week
Why this AEW Rampage match had to go under the knife in the editing room.
One of the top singles matches from this week's episode of AEW Rampage underwent heavy edits before hitting the airwaves.
Per Dave Meltzer in the latest Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer Daily Update (citing live reports), Eddie Kingston and Daniel Garcia's grudge match had to be trimmed down from around 22 minutes. Around 11 minutes ended up making television, meaning there were significant cuts between the match being filmed live on Wednesday (20 April) and its airing on Friday.
Timing issues were seemingly the driving force behind this, with AEW rushing through much of the hour-long broadcast. As well as Kingston vs. Garcia, Rampage featured Adam Cole vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Lance Archer squashing Serpentico, TBS Champion Jade Cargill vs. Marina Shafir, and several pre-advertised segments, few of which were given time to breathe.
Kingston defeated Garcia as part of Eddie, Santana, and Ortiz's going feud with the Jericho Appreciation Society. The two wrestlers' various allies were banned from ringside as per the bout's stipulation.
There is no word on whether or not the aforementioned timing issues stemmed from Garcia/Kingston itself. On top of the Rampage bouts, AEW ran through a live Dynamite tapings and Dark: Elevation bouts on Wednesday.