AEW Rampage Preview for April 22, 2023

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On Wednesday night, Pittsburgh bore witness to one of their favorite sons celebrating the highest of highs while one of their favorite daughters experienced the lowest of lows. Wardlow toppled Powerhouse Hobbs to reclaim the TNT Championship he was screwed out of at REVOLUTION 2023 but Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D was subjected to a ruthless kendo stick beating by The Outcasts while Adam Cole watched helplessly, chained to the bottom rope by Daniel Garcia.

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In addition, AEW World Champion MJF announced a Pillars Tournament between Darby Allin, “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry, and Sammy Guevara to determine who will face him at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2023 in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for Perry, MJF screwed him over in his match with Guevara, leaving Darby to face “The Spanish God” next week. Angelo Parker, Matt Menard, and Jake Hager lost in their attempt to indenture The Acclaimed and Daddy Ass to The Jericho Appreciation Society, Jay White scored an impressive victory over Komander while Shawn Spears watched from ringside, and Christian Cage made it known he has intentions for the TNT Championship!

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The action continues when RAMPAGE comes to you this week with a special Saturday night broadcast, getting underway at 10pm ET/9pm CT, well as at AEWPlus.com for our international audiences! Before the action gets underway, pay a visit the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from recent episodes of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest from AEW DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, ROAD TO, THE CONTROL CENTER, and much, much more!

ONE-ON-ONE…

Jon Moxley vs. Christopher Daniels

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On Wednesday night we watched as The Blackpool Combat Club attempted to assault The Elite, the other three jumping Kenny and The Young Bucks from behind while Danielson spoke to them from the safety of the video wall. A rather unexpected assist came in the form of Konosuke Takeshita, the athlete that Don Callis has been courting for quite awhile now, as he hit the ring to fend off The BCC just before Omega found himself on the business end of a screwdriver. If not for Takeshita, only can imagine the kind of horror that The BCC would’ve gleefully inflicted on Omega, but instead they were sent scurrying back into the shadows.

This Saturday night, Jon Moxley will come back out of those shadows and step into the ring with a man he’s only faced once before, over three years ago during the Jericho Cruise: Part Deux, a man he defeated it should be noted: “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels.

In 2023 Daniels has renewed his focus on in-ring competition, getting back into the fray in AEW as well as Ring of Honor, and he’s getting right into the fire with this fight against the former 3-Time AEW World Champion. The question is what frame of mind will Mox be in on Saturday? He’ll have had some time since the situation with The Elite and Takeshita, but will that be time to cool off or time to stew? Will the well-known history between Christopher Daniels and The Young Bucks cause Moxley to treat “The Fallen Angel” as a message? Or will he show Daniels the respect his 30 years of in-ring output have earned?

SINGLES MATCH…

The House of Black’s Julia Hart vs. Kiera Hogan

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Julia Hart is coming off a big victory over Anna Jay A.S., and looking to continue her 21-match winning streak this Saturday night on RAMPAGE over a very game Kiera Hogan. Hart hasn’t lost a match since the April 25, 2022 edition of DARK: ELEVATION, coincidentally an event that took place in Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center, and she doesn’t aim to let anyone end that streak anytime soon!

For Kiera Hogan, this is a chance to get back on track after her late-2022 TBS Championship loss to Jade Cargill, as well as her 2023 stumbles against Leila Grey and Toni Storm, and stopping this impressive streak of Julia’s would be a stellar way to get into a championship hunt. There will no doubt be plenty of eyes on this, not just those of The House of Black, but also Anna Jay A.S. who certainly isn’t happy about how things went down when she last collided with The House’s “Black Hart”!

THE STRANGEST OF BEDFELLOWS…

AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR(Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood), Jay Lethal, & Jeff Jarrett

vs.

Ari Daivari, Josh Woods, Slim J, & Tony Nese

Mark Briscoe was already in the middle of a very strange situation in which he thought he was linking up with a long-time friend in Jay Lethal, but instead ended up with bonus people in Satnam Singh, Jeff Jarrett, and Sonjay Dutt. While the unit may have been successful when they made their debut as a unit last week on RAMPAGE, topping the foursome of The Spanish Announce Project and Man Scout, Mark didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with how his teammates conducted their business. He had just finished making that crystal clear to Miss Lexy when “Smart” Mark Sterling led his clients into the attack on Mark seen above.

And as seen in that clip above, while FTR were intending to address their AEW World Tag Team Championship, they instead found themselves into the trainer’s room going back-and-forth with Lethal’s contingent over who had more right to get some revenge on Slim J, Tony Nese, Ari Daivari, and Josh Woods for what they did to Mark. Well, now they all get the opportunity on Saturday night when the two sides unite in Mark’s behalf to battle Sterling’s clients in an 8-Man Tag Team bout!

If Mark working alongside Jarrett, Lethal, Satnam, and Sonjay seemed combustible, then FTR doing the same is downright hazardous to the health of all involved! Lethal’s little group is not to be trusted, Jarrett being especially likely to slide that knife in if it means he can get close to those AEW World Tag Team Titles one more time, but maybe Mark Briscoe will be a strong enough unifying force to make sure these men take care of their opponents rather than each other.

Maybe after this Mark Briscoe can finally be rid of The Varsity Athletes, The Trustbusters, or anyone else associated with “Smart” Mark Sterling.

AAA MEGA TITLE MATCH…

El Hijo del Vikingo (c) vs. Dralistico

El Hijo Del Vikingo has been a busy man this last month; since March 19th, the AAA Mega Champion has competed in 15 different matches, four of them title matches (3 being for his AAA Mega Title), and in two different countries. He’s gone from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico to Independence, MO to San Miguel, Mexico to Grand Rapids, MI and from St. Louis, MO to Los Angeles to Monterrey to Milwaukee and finally, this Saturday night, Pittsburgh, PA. He’s been in the ring with Christopher Daniels, Gringo Loco, Kenny Omega, Laredo Kid, and plenty more of the best competitors today, and now he steps into the DYNAMITE ring once more, only this time with the AAA Mega Championship on the line!

The championship is familiar to the AEW faithful, Kenny Omega defended it on AEW programming on a pair of occasions during his 765-day reign, but the last time was on the March 25, 2020 edition of DYNAMITE against Sammy Guevara. So now the title makes its way back to All Elite Wrestling around the waist of the man who filled the vacancy left in the wake of Kenny’s 2021 injuries, the man who has blown the minds of so many fans around the world with his contributions to both AEW and ROH programming over the last month.

This Saturday night though, Vikingo runs into a familiar face, a familiar foe, when he answers the challenge of LFI’s Dralistico! Though they’ve never fought in a singles match, these two luchadores are no stranger to one another having danced in a pair of 2022 tag matches (one of which had Penta El Zero Miedo as Vikingo’s partner), and were actually on the same victorious side of a Trios bout less than two weeks ago in AAA.

But this Saturday will mark their first collision in a singles match, although it may not be fair to call any match involving a LFI member a “singles match”, not when factoring in the inevitable presence of Rush, Jose The Assistant, and Preston Vance. It is a virtual certainty they will get involved in the match at every possible opportunity, and attempt to sway the tide in Dralistico’s favor. It’s not necessarily even a helping hand that Dralistico will need, it’s almost as if Rush and company just take pleasure in disrupting the rules. Every competitor in LFI has the skills to win any match, they just prefer not to fight cleanly or fairly, they’d rather not leave anything to chance or risk finding out they weren’t the better man that particular outing.

So while Vikingo is contending with the amazing skills of Dralistico, he also has to be there with an eye on LFI, in hopes that he doesn’t fall victim to their machinations. No matter how good a competitor El Hijo Del Vikingo may be, one man can only fend off so much before the numbers become too great, and that’s the world where La Faccion Ingobernable loves to play!

A FIRM DEEEELETION…

VALHALLA BOUND?

This week RAMPAGE comes to the AEW faithful as a special Saturday night broadcast with the fights getting started at 10pm ET/9pm CT, well as at AEWPlus.com for AEW’s international fans! Before the night gets started, swing by the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from previous editions of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest from AEW DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, ROAD TO, THE CONTROL CENTER, and much, much more!

Article source: allelitewrestling.com