As the new television deal between Warner Bros Discovery and All Elite Wrestling seems close to complete, rumours have been coming out that a casualty of the new deal will be Friday Night Rampage on TNT.
This could mean that Collision or Dynamite gets a third hour added, as I doubt WBD is looking for less programming from AEW. If the third show in Shockwave is going on a different network than WBD, that should suggest that WBD still wants their five hours.
The original report by John Ourand stated AEW airing on TNT, TBS, and TruTV twice per week. One might imagine that’s three two hour shows with a replay. If they are eliminating Rampage, does that mean both Dynamite and Collision move to three hours? Will ROH TV be the two hours to replace the one from Rampage?
It’s all up in the air.
But if this is the end of AEW Rampage? This will be a sad day for the Pagers.
The what? I’ll get to it.
History of Rampage
AEW Rampage started August 13, 2021 as the second show of All Elite Wrestling, a one hour on Friday nights at 10PM EST. You could not have started stronger. Christian Cage defeated Kenny Omega for the Impact World Championship, the first loss Omega had taken since winning the AEW Men’s World Championship.
The second episode was even bigger, with the debut of CM Punk in the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Debuting your new show with the signing of CM Punk was a bold move by AEW, and AEW initially made CM Punk the reason to tune into AEW Rampage.
Rampage didn’t feel like a B or C show in the beginning it. It merely felt like an extension of AEW Dynamite. Bryan Danielson was wrestling Nick Jackson of the Young Bucks on the eighth episode. CM Punk was opening the show, wrestling the likes of Powerhouse Hobbs and Daniel Garcia. Andrade El Idolo wrestled PAC twice.
CM Punk would wrestle Matt Sydal on Rampage on October 15, 2021 and that would be the last time he would ever wrestle on the show he debuted on. Following that he would be exclusive to AEW Dynamite, and later exclusive to AEW Collision. Adam Cole would fill CM Punk’s role as a headliner of the show, with Cody Rhodes coming in for some of his final AEW appearances at the end of the year as TNT Champion as well.
In 2022, that’s when Rampage began feeling less like an extension of Dynamite and more of a B Show. The WCW Thunder to Dynamite’s Nitro if you will. You would still see top stars on the show, everyone from Jon Moxley to Eddie Kingston to Bryan Danielson and Darby Allin, but it just felt like AEW President Tony Khan was booking a lot of undercard talents in programs that were not really going anywhere. It was just an empty space to fill.
There’s a particular episode on August 10, 2022, only three days from the one year anniversary of the show. In Minneapolis, the show was booked to have Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo face Skye Blue and Dante Martin in the opener. Parker Boudreau beat Sonny Kiss in a squash. The Gunn Club faced Danhausen tag teaming with Erik Redbeard, and the main event was Orange Cassidy against Ari Daivari. This was one of the first times it felt like AEW President Tony Khan just didn’t care about AEW Rampage. This isn’t Thunder anymore. This is WWE Velocity. This is TNA Xplosion. This just doesn’t matter.
Aside from the Grand Slam Rampage, there would not be an episode of Rampage for the rest of 2022 that was booked to be important. That doesn’t mean there were no good matches or the wrestlers sucked or there wasn’t occasional star power. It just didn’t feel like the show meant anything in the grand plan of All Elite Wrestling.
It would be more of the same in 2023, with at least Jon Moxley and The Elite showing up at times to make things feel bigger than it was. A lot of shows were still just feeling random and unimportant, or so low in the card these matches would not matter for the pay per view you were going to pay for. The most interesting episode in the first six months was the Championship Friday which had El Hijo del Vikingo defending the AAA Mega Championship, Zack Sabre Jr. defending the NJPW World Television Championship, Willow Nightingale defending the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship, and Katsuyori Shibata defending the ROH Pure Championship.
One month later would be the debut of AEW Collision. With two hours and talk of it being a brand split between Dynamite and Collision, where certain wrestlers like a returning CM Punk you could only see on Collision, the importance of Rampage was likely to be nothing but an afterthought going forward. Dynamite and Collision would be the focal points of the company in building towards a pay per view. There’s no way Rampage would matter now.
BEEP IT PAGERS
Around the time of the debut of AEW Collision, there was a push to make it so people who watched Collision were separate from fans of AEW Dynamite. Some of course took this too far, pretending that AEW Collision was this revelation in pro wrestling television, presenting the product in the best way possible. People can feel how they want about it, but it isn’t hard to see that those first couple weeks were just a really basic wrestling show where almost all storylines revolved around one man (CM Punk) so it was very simple to watch. I guess if Dynamite and Rampage were too challenging for you because it asked you to think about more than one wrestler? Collision was your training wheels.
Those who decided to make AEW Collision their show (CM Punk fans) started calling themselves Colliders, as it was something that even CM Punk mentioned on Instagram. People who thought it was silly (or were Elite fans) started calling themselves Kaboomers for, “staying loyal to AEW Dynamite” and if you can’t tell I’m struggling to write this in embarrassment. Colliders. Kaboomers. CM Punk and Elite fans. Sigh. Glad that’s all over. Except in some people’s minds.
Anyway, feeling it was all dumb, I saw that of course Rampage was being ignored. The original CM Punk show. The original number two show. The one hour every Friday. Where was the love for Rampage? Some had suggested names for Rampage fans. Rampires was good. But I had gimmickier plans!
That’s right. Rampage. Rampagers. Pagers.
Using the pager emoji every week I hyped up AEW Rampage like it was a three way contest. I’m not trying to claim it was a movement or anything but it was fun to do and I think it survived longer than Kaboomers or Colliders. I do know Brody King still tries to push Colliders but hey I’m not saying anything bad about that man.
Power Hour
The point was simply to have some fun and highlight AEW Rampage because Rampage could be a great show if All Elite Wrestling actually tried with it. A one hour wrestling show is a perfect way to trim the fat and give people a focused, high octane wrestling show that doesn’t take a breath. It’s also never live so you can edit it to your hearts content. Cut anything you don’t need. Build the pace you want.
AEW didn’t really do that. Sometimes they would take first steps to, like when they would cut entrances and kick the show off with a match hitting the bell seconds after. They just never went as far as they could have.
Instead it was treated as a dumping ground more often than not. We did get a few interesting moments. Jade Cargill had her last match in AEW against Kris Statlander on AEW Rampage, in what is already feeling will end up the best match of Jade Cargill’s pro wrestling career. In 2024, we also got what could be Chuck Taylor’s final match in losing to Trent Beretta in a fantastic parking lot fight. The last time we likely see The Lucha Brothers is going to be AEW Rampage when they beat Private Party in July. I guess in a way it gets used as your farewell exit from AEW.
Today, Rampage hasn’t come back to being that third hour extension of Dynamite. Collision has taken the WCW Thunder spot as the show doesn’t feel anywhere near as important as Dynamite. I can’t say Rampage is as thoughtless as a Velocity/Heat/Xplosion but it sits in sort of an equal ground to Collision but sometimes less. Again, it’s not that it was a bad show. I enjoy Rampage. It’s just unfulfilled potential.
Wrestlers still work hard on the show. It’s a great place for wrestlers to get better or build up their fanbases. Hikaru Shida fans (which I am one of) know to always tune in to AEW Rampage for her. The Outrunners and Gates of Agony are two tag teams that have got better and built up credibility with AEW fans based on their performances on Rampage. Harley Cameron first showed improvement in my eyes in her match with Nyla Rose back in July, and honestly she’s become a much better wrestler than what we saw from her Dark appearances in 2022 and when she first came in to full-time back in May. A show like Rampage helps that.
The Last Beep
But most of this is faint praise. Of course you can find something good if you look hard enough. While not a complete failure like Battle of the Belts, AEW Rampage is still something AEW could have made great if they tried harder with it and instead decided to fall back on the fact they have a giant roster of great wrestlers. The one hour show was enjoyable, but it could have been so much more.
If AEW is indeed ending AEW Rampage, I’ll miss having a one hour wrestling show to watch. I find myself often getting bored with two hour programs (I have to watch Collision after the fact so I can skip it along) but in an hour I never feel like my time is wasted, even if there wasn’t much story progression on the show. It should be no surprise that my favourite weekly pro wrestling show of all time was Lucha Underground.
Television demands content and pro wrestling is cheap content. For them it isn’t about the user experience but what’s going to be on when they have to run commercials. It is probably in the mindset of WBD to just go ahead and give AEW two hours for AEW:ROH instead of keeping Rampage around. Are they really losing too much brand value out of doing that? Not with how AEW has handled Rampage.
I do expect the rumours to be true, and it will be a sad day for the Pager who were in to BEEP IT! every Friday night. But it’s also understandable. Maybe someday down the road AEW can try a one hour show again, and when they do? They will take full advantage of the editing process, the deep roster, and try to make it as important as we acted like it was on Twitter.
