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Rampage: A good night for a street fight

Adam Bazzana

This week we were treated by AEW, as we had an hour of Rampage immediately following the conclusion of Dynamite. We got to see some very exciting matches, including a Street Fight which saw Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander taking on Julia Hart and Skye Blue, as well as action from the Tag Team tournament, with Best Friends Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta taking on Powerhouse Hobbs and Kyle Fletcher of the Don Callis Family for the final spot in the tournament, and finally Konosuke Takeshita facing off with Rocky “Azucar” Romero.

Bullet Club Gold and the Acclaimed trade words

The show began with a video of Austin and Colten Gunn lounging by a pool with a fake skeleton, which had a “Darby on Everest” sign on it. After taking some shots at the Acclaimed, including some savage remarks for their father, Jay White came into frame with Sting’s bat, which he had spray-painted gold.

The video cut and the Acclaimed came out to give their spiel. They say that they should have known the Bang Bang Gang would attack them and that the injuries Billy Gunn received were so bad that he was not even cleared to travel yet. They said White is a fake heavyweight who hides behind his “Ass Boys”, and offered him a chance to save his life by giving him a one-way ticket to wherever he wanted so they could not get their hands on him. They called him a coward and said they are counting down the days until they can “beat his ass silly.” They finished off by getting all the fans in attendance to flip off the Bullet Club together, as the camera swung around to get the Acclaimed and the fans in shit together.

Tag Team Tournament: Best Friends (Orange Cassidy & Trent Beretta) vs Don Callis Family (Powerhouse Hobbs & Kyle Fletcher)

The first match of Rampage saw a very high energy tag match between the Best Friends and the Don Callis Family. Cassidy came to the ring with tape on his lower back, and Hobbs tried his best to exploit that right away, nailing Cassidy to the mat with a spine buster. The Callis Family had momentum early, with Fletcher and Hobbs dealing with Beretta outside the ring as Cassidy lay down inside of it. Cassidy tried flying through the ropes to take Hobbs out, but Hobbs caught him and slammed him down on the apron right on his back three times before sending him back into the ring. After dodging a splash against the turnbuckles from Hobbs, Cassidy managed to take Beretta in who immediately went to work, sending Fletcher out of the ring beside Hobbs who was just recovering from missing his splash. Beretta hit them both with a senton from the top rope. After the fight found it’s way back into the ring, Beretta tried hitting a DDT on Fletcher, who caught him and hit Beretta with a Pendulum Powerbomb alongside Hobbs. After Cassidy hit a Stundog Millionaire followed by Beretta hitting a Sole Food Half and Half on Fletcher, the two Best Friends went for a hug in the middle of the ring which was rudely ran through by Hobbs. The pair then hit Hobbs with a Strong Zero after Cassidy countered a slam by Hobbs. Fletcher takes the opportunity to his advantage, hitting Cassidy with a spinning Tombstone once he returned to the ring, but Cassidy kicked at two. Fletcher then got Cassidy to the top turnbuckle, but Beretta comes and breaks it up, and hits a Sole Food Half and Half from the top rope, followed by a diving DDT and an Orange Punch from Cassidy, sealing the match for the Best Friends.

Winners: The Best Friends (Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta)

Katsuyori Shibata vs Kevin Matthews

 

In the second match of Rampage, we saw Katsuyori Shibata take on Kevin Matthews. Shibata instantly took control of the match, beating down Matthews in the corner with stomps before flying in with a dropkick and finally hitting a suplex. Things looked to be turning around after Matthews hit Shibata with a clothesline and got him on his shoulders, but Shibata instantly countered, locked in a choke, and right before Matthews fell asleep, he let go and hit him with an emphatic PK for the win.

Winner: Katsuyori Shibata

Konosuke Takeshita vs Rocky “Azucar” Romero

This match saw a lot of back and forth between the two fighters, with Takeshita allowing Romero hits on him and seemingly being unaffected, but maybe taking more damage then he was truly letting on. The match started with Takeshita gingerly placing Romero down on the top of the ropes after picking him up, and allowing Romero chops and hits on him for free. When Takeshita started taking things seriously, he hit Romero with a body slam, followed by a rope-propelled drop kick which sent Romero out of the ring. After throwing Romero into the ring post and hitting him with a nasty elbow strike, Takeshita took them both back in the ring, where the men began exchanging blows once again. Takeshita sat down in the middle of the ring and let Romero kick him in the back multiple times, and once he gets Romero seated in the middle of the ring, hits him with another hard elbow strike. After Takeshita got Romero to the top rope, Romero hit Takeshita with a DDT, and after Takeshita rolled out of the ring Romero flew through the ropes twice. The third time he was caught, but ducked Takeshita’s elbow, causing him to elbow the ring post and hurt his arm instead. After flying through the ropes once more into Takeshita, Romero got him back in the ring and begun working on his injured arm. After sinking in an armbar, Don Callis ran up to distract the ref, giving Takeshita a much needed break. Takeshita then countered a move by Romero by hitting a piledriver, followed closely by a spinning Thunderbomb, which Romero kicked out of. After seemingly slowing Takehsita with a jumping knee, Romero went into the ropes, only to come flying back out into Takeshita’s elbow. After hitting the rolling elbow, followed by a Falcon Arrow, Takeshita was able to get the pinfall.

Winner: Konosuke Takeshita

Street Fight: Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander vs Julia Hart and Skye Blue

The final match of the night did not disappoint at all, with Statlander and Nightingale rushing out to meet their opponents as they were still on their way to the ring. The team of Nightingale and Statlander had chosen chairs as their weapons of choice, and Hart and Blue came out with kendo sticks for themselves. Nightingale and Statlander were very much on the front foot at the beginning, with Nightingale choking out Blue with her own kendo stick, and Statlander tripping Hart and getting her stuck in the middle of the chair. Nightingale used this opportunity to kick Hart in the head, and Statlander picked her up (still wedged in the chair) and slammed the chair back down before Nightingale hit Hart with a second drop kick, this time to the midsection causing the chair to fall over. after regaining some control, Hart was set up to hit Statlander with a spike, but she moved last minute and Hart ended up hitting Blue instead, causing her to leak a little bit. Statlander tried using this to set up a suplex on Hart, but she begins choking Statlander while clinging onto her like a backpack, causing Statlander to send them both crashing through a table set up in the ring, but spinning so Hart would be taking the brunt of the blow.

Later, Hart was on the outside of the ring teeing off on Statlander with her kendo stick, while in the ring Blue was in the corner holding, sitting down with a chair place across her body and Nightingale hit her full force with a cannonball. As the action once again found it’s way to the outer ring, Nightingale tried setting up Blue for a powerbomb through the announce table, but after a superkick from Blue, she was hit with a Code Blue into the table. Blue uses this opportunity to get back into the ring and dumps a bag of thumbtacks. Statlander sees this and momentarily stops her beatdown of Hart on the ring steps to get another back of thumbtacks and add to those already in the ring. Statlander attempted to get Blue up the ropes for a superplex onto the thumbtacks, but after a counter Blue sent Statlander into them with a powerbomb, and the camera showed the tacks that got stuck in Statlander’s lower back. Blue then went to the top rope, but Nightingale had returned, and took Blue with her through two table outside the ring with a Death Valley Driver.

This left just Statlander and Hart still in fighting shape, and after slamming Hart onto a pile of steel chairs, Statlander went up to the top rope to hit her with a 450. Hart rolled out of the way at the last second, and just after Statlander had landed on the steel chairs Hart sunk in Hartless, causing Statlander to tap out.

Winners: Julia Hart and Skye Blue

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