AEW Rampage: Holiday Bash 12/25/2021

AEW Rampage: Holiday Bash 12/25/2021

Jungle Boy vs Isaiah Kassidy

JB had a nice run up the ropes into a dropkick and Kassidy hit a nice tornillo dive. It started out well but then they started kicking out of the ki krusher's and poisonrana's which I didn't like. We had interference from HFO then Jurassic Express and HFO went at it. JB then hit his stf and won it.

Ricky Starks took credit for screwing over Dante Martin in his match with MJF for the Dynamite Diamond Ring. We still haven't gotten any explanation on why Dante turned on Lio Rush or Team Taz, though at this point.

Miro got a vignette where he said he will return with no flaws and said he will become champion.

Hook vs Bear Bronson

Wasn't a fan of this one at all. Hook took a sitout driver then no sold it. Bear took a hard head and arm suplex on his neck and then was choked out with the tazmission. Hook just isn't big enough to buy him throwing around Bear like that. Tony Nese was shown watching from the stands.

Bear Country is a good example of why Vince doesn't feature tag teams much. One of the members gets injured and then both are basically useless while still getting the same pay.

Eddie Kingston said he respected Daniel Garcia cheating to win. He said him, Santana and Ortiz will take on Garcia and 2.0 in a trios match.

Kris Statlander vs Leyla Hirsch

Neither girl got an entrance here. Kris looked at least a foot taller than Leyla. Kris ended up winning this with a nudo out of nowhere. Leyla was good here stiffing Kris and using her small stature to take down Kris, but she's a tough one to book. She's small so she should kind of be the face but she wrestles like a heel and just doesn't come across as a face.

Sammy and Cody (with Arn) did a splitscreen promo. Arn talked about how he's been chewing out Cody and he should be upset, then Sammy said he's mad too at being underrated. He said he would carry Cody today which I didn't like since that broke kayfabe.

TNT Title - Sammy Guevara (c) vs Cody Rhodes

The only way Sammy should really lose this is if Cody goes full heel here and wins it that way. Cody got the big entrance here, which Arn wasn't allowed to join in on. Lee Johnson and Arn's son also came out then were immediately sent back. No idea on that one.

David Crockett was out here to present the winner with the title.

Cody got rushed early with a big drop kick and some other moves then took a walk into the crowd to stall. Cody came back in and got beat up some then hit a nice Cody cutter. We had what felt like a long commercial break during the match and after, Sammy hit double jump Cody cutter. Sammy then hit a cross rhodes and landed hard on a double jump 450 to the outside. Sammy went for a running hurricanrana and was caught and thrown into the front row. Cody hit a disaster kick and Sammy sold it well, then Sammy sold a cross rhodes well. Cody blocked a 630 with his knees and won after 2 cross rhodes and a sitout double underhook piledriver. I thought this was a good match with Sammy using some of Cody's moves against him to upstage him and Cody working like a heel here against him.

While Cody winning continues that storyline, it hurts Sammy and Miro. Miro shouldn't of lost to Sammy but it looks worse since Sammy ended up just becoming a transitional champion to Cody. It didn't seem like there was a ton of planning involved with Miro losing to Sammy and this result furthers that. Meanwhile, if the plan all along was to have Sammy lose to Cody, you could have made a story out of it to make it better. Doing this on the Christmas version of Rampage also didn't make much sense since a large portion of the AEW audience probably isn't tuning in.

Overall thoughts: I liked two of the four matches and had some changes been made, I might have liked all four of them. They just did too much in the opener and Hook's offense wasn't believeable.