AEW Rampage 12/31/2021

AEW Rampage 12/31/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-rampage-holiday-bash-12252021.html

Betty White died today which has been the main talk of this New Year's.

Darby Allin vs Anthony Bowens

Max Caster did a rap bringing up Ghislane Maxwell. Darby took a nice shoulder bump into the post off the apron. AB hit a big superkick and a wild hanging roll of the dice. Bowens then put him up in an electric chair outside and banged Darby's head off the apron. Darby ended up winning this with a coffin drop and it was a fine match.

Andrade El Idolo came out then Bowens nailed Sting with a boombox. Darby then took a chain punch to the face by Max.

They did a video showing some of Hook's techniques with Taz talking over it.

Street Fight - Anna Jay and Tay Conti vs Penelope Ford and The Bunny

Penelope Ford did a moonsault off the top rope onto Tay who was on a table outside, but the table did not break. She then smashed Tay's head with a beer liquor bottle. The Bunny started bleeding hardway here and Tay got busted open too. Bunny took a hard suplex on a chair by Anna Jay and the chair did not bend much making it worse. Tay and Ford hit some nice shots on each other during the picture in picture break.

The Bunny brought some thumbtacks in and ended up getting superplexed on them. Tay took a hard double stomp with a chair on her stomach and was redder with blood than the kool-aid man is. Ford then took a wild off the apron gotch-stylve piledriver through a table. Anna Jay wrapped her arm in barbed wire and put Bunny in a sleeper to win it. This was WILD and was awesome. This was super violent and blood with 4 attractive women. This was maybe the best AEW match I've seen and was a great example of how to blow off a feud. Must see! Why was this not on Dynamite?

We had a video package on Page vs Danielson.

Lambert, Page and Sky did a splitscreen promo with Arn and Cody. As usual, Lambert said Cody is getting pushed due to Tony liking him and Arn spoke for Cody saying this was personal since Dan went after Brandi.

TNT Title - Cody Rhodes vs Ethan Page

Page pretended to sleep in the corner with the apron while Cody came in. Cody should have rushed in here like they did in the women's match but he just did the usual entrance and didn't seem to care.

Ethan did an interesting shoulder tackle off the apron onto Cody. A large portion of this got cut off by a commercial. Page's crew interfered here then Dustin Rhodes evened the score by fighting Sky. Cody got hit with a top rope powerslam for 2. Cody tried a figure four, got it reversed then ended up winning it with a couple of cross rhodes and a double underhook sitout piledriver. I didn't think this was anything too special and it dragged on after having to follow the women.

Overall thoughts: The opener was fine and the street fight was maybe the best AEW match I've ever seen. Cody's match should not have been the main here since it had no chance of following the wild women's match. I liked this show and I think the women's match was a must see.