6 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Rampage (April 14)
FTR commits to AEW; Shawn Spears returns; Rampage is a cracking hour of wrestling TV.
Regular viewers will know how challenging Rampage can be to watch and appreciate. He surely doesn't, but it does seem like Tony Khan hurls some afterthought creative scraps at a wall to see what sticks, then pops that on format sheets for Fridays and calls it a day.
Not this week.
No, All Elite's third hour had actual purpose and felt like the condensed edition of Dynamite it was originally supposed to be. FTR made a cool announcement, Jade Cargill and Taya Valkyrie zoomed towards their eventual TBS Title showdown, Aussie Open showed why they should become AEW full-timers, and the main event was part of the wider AEW World Title conversation.
The company even found time to squeeze in some intentionally bad "sports entertainment" stuff, and kept Mark Briscoe's unwilling partnership with Jay Lethal and pals ticking over. Most things came together nicely on the show. "Most things".
Any negatives didn't detract from the overall enjoyment factor though. Sure, diminishing returns are now the law for Matt and Jeff Hardy, and some of the refereeing was questionable, but those were minor 'Downs' and that's lovely to report.
Here's all the good and bad from Rampage.