5 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Rampage (Nov 18)
1. “Dream Match”, But…
Right, yours truly might catch some flak for this one.
It's awesome if people were looking forward to seeing ex-All Japan man Jun Akiyama wrestle in AEW, and he'll deliver more one-on-one vs. Eddie Kingston during the Full Gear pre-show for sure. However, having the announcers big up this Rampage main event and then go picture-in-picture flat out sucked.
This bout was positioned as a real dream come true for Kingston (in particular). Then, just a few short minutes in, ads started hogging screen real estate as Konosuke Takeshita sold some holds in a smaller box on the right hand side. Suddenly, a commercial for the coming Full Gear 'Countdown' show flashed up.
That's right, All Elite interrupted their show to run an advert for...another one of their shows. That's rather irritating; selling ad time for other products is one thing, but cutting off a supposed "dream match" (their words) to hype video packages for Full Gear? Urgh.