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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Dec 25, 2021 22:39:24 GMT -5
Great point. Like it or not, Cody is a top star in AEW, beating him should be a big deal. Anyone who takes the title off him will be seen as a bigger deal, at least in my view. See also MJF who won the feud with Cody, and currently now is another Pillar. Sammy, Jungle Boy arent fully cemented as pillars yet.
Hell, Darby beat Cody and became a made man in terms of the Pillars when he had that good stretch of TNT Title matches up until Miro beat him.
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Post by prowresblog on Dec 25, 2021 22:39:48 GMT -5
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.
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Post by EZ: Brainy Bae on Dec 25, 2021 22:47:02 GMT -5
Cody will spend the next several months claiming to be the top champion of AEW. Hangman Page will finally have enough of it and call out Cody and challenge him to a "title for title" match. Cody will accept the challenge and say he never went back on his promise because HE wasn't the one making the challenge, Hangman was. I actually love this idea
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