Taped to air leading into TNT’s coverage of NBA All-Star weekend AEW Rampage kicked off its February 17th edition with a rematch for the AEW Trios titles. Ricky Starks also battled Daniel Garcia, Jade Cargill had a (short) title defense, and Swerve Strickland got a surprise following his match against Dustin Rhodes.
Highlights:
- The Elite defeated Top Flight and AR Fox in a rematch for the AEW Trios Championship that worked the basketball theme in multiple times with in-ring spots and plenty of puns from the commentary team. Post-match also saw a short appearance by two members of the House of Black suggesting who will be challenging the Elite when we get to AEW Revolution.
- Ricky Starks beat Daniel Garcia in another strong match between the pair whose styles compliment each other in the ring. The match was built around Garcia targeting Starks knee but ultimately falling to Starks despite the interference of Sammy Guevara who would challenge Action Andretti (who came out to help Starks) to a match next week.
- Picking up the thread of him leaving Best Friends for the Blackpool Combat Club, Wheeler Yuta interrupted Mark Henry‘s interview with Orange Cassidy to challenge his former friend to a match for the AEW All-Atlantic Championship next week on AEW Dynamite.
- Swerve Strickland played up his heel heat in his match against Dustin Rhodes. Swerve lost the match due to the interference from his ringside hooligan, but more notably the post-match beatdown of Rhodes saw the return of Swerve’s former tag-team partner Keith Lee likely setting up a match between the pair at AEW Revolution.
Lows:
- None.
Less Notable:
- Jade Cargill defeated Vert Vixen in an all-too-short squash match. Fine for what it was, but given its short time it didn’t do much for either woman. A fan of each of them, I’d have preferred to see this match get more time over the main event with time for Vert Vixen to get in at least a little offense.
- Serviceable promo from the Ass Boys backstage with Lexy Nair on their thoughts about defending the AEW Tag Team Championship at AEW Revolution.
