7 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Rampage: New Year's Smash (Dec 30)

2. Hey, One Of These Worked!

Mark Henry's pre-main event promos are normally skippable nonsense that outlived their usefulness ages ago. Here's where it gets interesting: Rampage's main event needed big 'Sexual Chocolate's' usual insert to give Swerve Strickland's Mogul Affiliates some more juice.

The whole thing was pretty darn good.

Swerve spoke of craving violence (the same violence favoured by members of the Blackpool Combat Club), and Wheeler Yuta got to do some talking of his own. He ranted about proving how important he can be to Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli, then hurled a barb at the Affiliates' ink work.

Firing right back, but in a neatly-subtle fashion, Strickland laughed off the joke with a casual "say less" remark. That was oddly menacing, because it teased that Swerve might teach Wheeler a lesson in-ring if he didn't stop running his mouth.