As the clock turned midnight and we celebrated the New Year of 2025, it meant the official end of AEW Rampage on Friday nights.
I already wrote about the potential End of Rampage back in September but it’s only fitting to discuss it on the first Friday it won’t be airing.
Rampage ended on 177 episodes with the final episode from the Hammerstein Ballroom airing on December 27, 2024. What’s interesting is that the final month of Rampage ended up with some of its very best episodes ever thanks in part to the 2024 Continental Classic.
Going forward, AEW will now have the two hours of Dynamite on Wednesday and the two hours of Collision on Saturday for Warner Bros Discovery. Oddly people online were at one point talking like this was a loss for AEW, and while it is a loss in TV time, it means AEW got paid more money for less TV programming by WBD. The extended deal also meant more money and no exclusivity. TV usually pays a premium to acquire exclusivity, not to lose it. That means the value of Dynamite and Collision was so great it meant AEW made more money to provide less programming and allowing AEW to air on other networks.
If there is a fill-in for some of the TV, it’s looking to be that AEW Dynamite will be airing on TruTV on Friday nights as a re-run of the Wednesday program. TruTV, part of the WBD network, will air AEW Dynamite’s 1/18/25 telecast on TruTV on Friday, January 10, 2025 at 10PM EST. It’s possible with the rumours of Tony Khan trying to get Ring of Honor a TV deal that WBD instead decided to go with a rerun of Dynamite instead for TruTV.
The original report by John Ourand of Puck stated, “AEW will air on TNT, TBS, and TruTV twice per week” and I wonder if that was just worded improperly. The TBS and TNT schedules don’t show reruns of Dynamite or Collision, and TruTV only has Dynamite re-runs so far.
Shockwave?
Back in September, there had been discussions that AEW was negotiating with Fox for a show called Shockwave. AEW did file to trademark Shockwave back in September of 2024 and have yet to use it. Then again, AEW has several trademarks they have yet to use. Watch Your Wrestling, Paragon, Blood Moon Rising, WrestleBowl/Wrestling Bowl, Transfer Portal, AEW: Match Madness, and Parade of Champions to name a few.
Some people have been impatient on news of a new show, which is no surprise for how impatient we were for a new WBD extension. These things take time and just because we heard rumours back in the late summer doesn’t mean AEW and Fox (or any other potential network) are anywhere close to a deal.
Is it possible that AEW ratings have caused cold feet for Fox? It’s possible. Then again, people thought that would be the case for WBD and they ended up paying more for less programming.
If Shockwave does come, the only way it will be a replacement for Rampage is if it’s a one hour program.
One Hour of Wrestling
For people who were not PAGERS who would BEEP IT! every Friday? A lot of folks didn’t understand why anyone would watch Rampage or champion it between the AEW programming.
One hour wrestling programming has a pace and energy that two hours cannot match. There’s been plenty of AEW Dynamite’s I can think of where the first hour was hot and fast paced only for things to grind to a halt around the fifth or sixth quarter. Meanwhile, AEW Rampage keeps that lightning pace for the entirety of the show. It doesn’t get an opportunity to slow down.
Having three to four matches means all killer and no filler. It was rare for the show to be bogged down by promo segments or angles. It just didn’t have time to waste, especially since AEW positioned all commercials during matches with picture in picture.
Now the only one hour wrestling show online is NWA Powerrr! which… yeah they just don’t fill the void of Rampage at all. They are even running an event called Shockwave this month which is funny. I will say, if there’s one person in the National Wrestling Alliance I would love for All Elite Wrestling? It’s easily “The Thrillbilly” Silas Mason. I would take him in AEW any day.
Anyway.
If Fox was only asking for one hour when it comes to Shockwave? I’d love it. By having the value of network TV that would mean it would have to keep the pace of Rampage but would have much stronger superstar treatment. Those Shockwave tapings would feature the very best of AEW stars, and to force the company to cram those stars in a one hour show? That’s four quarters to do your best work in selling people on AEW PPV’s.
If they go two hours? It’s just another two hour AEW show. It will bump Collision to “C” status and possibly Dynamite to “B” status and be the “A” show due to network availability and likely being worth more to AEW per hour than any other show.
The Best Moments
You can’t begin a list of best moments in AEW Rampage without going with The First Dance. Selling out the United Center on a rumour, the broadcast beginning with fans chanting CM Punk’s name, and the music hitting? Absolute classic.
The episode prior had Christian Cage defeating Kenny Omega for the TNA Impact World Championship, the first singles loss Omega took since losing the Lights Out match to Jon Moxley in 2019, almost two years prior.
The New Year’s Smash 2021 episode which had TayJay beat Penelope Ford and The Bunny in a crazy good street fight which WWE cried to the Toronto Sun about it being gory self-mutilation and led to women’s tag hardcore matches being a staple of All Elite Wrestling.
Jon Moxley’s incredible match with Wheeler Yuta in Boston for Yuta to earn the respect of the Blackpool Combat Club is still possibly the best match in Rampage history. Yuta with a full Muta mask of blood in his face needing elbows, a Death Rider, and a choke out to finally stop fighting.
The Texas Death match between Adam Cole and Hangman Adam Page where Hangman Page cut the barbwire wrapped around his right arm onto Adam Cole’s head like a Jesus Crown of Thorns only two days prior to Easter Sunday and drove Jesus Cole with a Deadeye onto a table on the outside? Absolutely fantastic. Those back to back weeks are some of the best of Rampage.
Andrade El Idolo and Rey Fenix having an absolutely incredible match on Rampage in June of 2022. It felt like we were watching the best lucha wrestlers outside of Mexico at their peak powers against each other.
The Royal Rampage in Detroit in 2022 (which I attended live) where Brody King choked out Darby Allin and dropped his lifeless body onto the ground to win the match. Easily one of the best eliminations I’ve ever seen in a battle royal match.
The Great Muta showing up to save Sting and Darby Allin from The House of Black at Grand Slam: Rampage.
The 100th Rampage featuring The Dark Order defeating Hangman Adam Page with The Young Bucks, essentially getting revenge for the 10 man tag when Hangman and Dark Order lost to The Elite.
The parking lot fight between Blackpool Combat Club and Best Friends, one of the last great moments of Chuck Taylor and Trent as a tag team.
Kris Statlander defeating Jade Cargill on Rampage as Jade’s swan song from the company, in what was easily the best match of her career. It’s around this time I started wondering if Kris Statlander was Bret Hart reborn with how good she made Jade and made Jade look like a competent pro wrestler.
The Rampage Holiday Bash 2023 (what is it with the Bash always being big for Rampage?) featuring El Hijo del Vikingo defending the AAA Mega Championship against Black Taurus, who would later become an AEW regular as The Beast Mortos. Absolutely fantastic match.
The Parking Lot fight on Rampage in Daily’s Place on April 27 of this year in which Trent Beretta may have defeated Chuck Taylor in his last wrestling match. This is about Rampage but the Best Friends absolutely deserved better in AEW.
The December 4th, 2024 episode of Rampage featuring three Continental Classic matches and being the best pro wrestling hour of the year for cable TV.
Last Beep For Rampage
AEW was smart to begin their new hour of TV back in 2022 with Kenny Omega’s first pinfall loss in a singles match and then follow up with CM Punk’s debut. Unfortunately, after CM Punk decided to be exclusive to Dynamite about 10 weeks in, the program absolutely garnered “B” status based on the match booking.
Rampage would be at its best when it felt like an extension of Dynamite, a third hour shown 48 hours later. Same level of stars and same level of importance. Unfortunately, it was often used as a dumping grounds, a way to get lesser card talent some reps. All of these great matches and moments were usually coming after you had to sit through an Aaron Solo match, or The Varsity Athletes, or The Firm, or the Trustbusters. Sometimes you got wrestlers like Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson showing up just for the love of the game, because Rampage often didn’t involve storylines you’d see on Dynamite or Collision.
It’s too bad because like I said earlier, I loved having that power hour where you don’t have as much time to waste. Matches have to be quick, in and out, little fat on the bone, and it was always the big time energy wrestlers that would thrive on the show.
I don’t expect anything to really fill the void unless Shockwave ends up a one hour show, but there’s lessons AEW can learn from the Rampage run.
The first lesson? There is no such thing as low value TV Time. Even at the 10PM timeslot, Rampage could hit good ratings if the show was presented properly with stars people wanted to see. It only started dropping when it became a dumping ground for Matt Hardy or Ethan Page. If you have wrestlers that need reps? Get them on ROH. Do not use your Dynamite/Collision minutes to develop low card wrestlers, unless those wrestlers are in line for a push.
The second lesson? First Quarter is King. We’ve been long trained to believe that the most important quarter hour in pro wrestling is the final quarter. That’s the main event. However, Rampage proved early on that the first quarter is actually the most important quarter, since people will come to watch from the lead-in, and it was usually more likely to have a higher number watching than the other quarters. People would taper off as the day got late. We now see this in Collision and Dynamite, but we learned this back on Rampage.
AEW can easily use this to their advantage. If people still think the main event is important even though it doesn’t draw like the first quarter? Put people in the main event who can use a self esteem boost with the *perception* of importance while putting the actual draws of the show in the first two quarters. That first 30 minutes is important to proving who is actually going to stay watching the show for the two hours.
The final lesson? Be Proud of Rampage. Once Rampage goes up on MAX and people can re-watch it, it’s going to absolutely blow out any other late night wrestling show out of the water. If you considered it the C show? Compare it to other C shows then. Heat, Velocity, Superstars, ECW on SyFy, etc. and look at the quality difference. There are not too many weeks in wrestling history that NXT can say they had better wrestling than Rampage.
I will miss my one hour of Rampage each week as the original PAGER, and I’ll have to find something else in wrestling to fill that void. Or I’ll just leave it empty until Shockwave debuts.
Photos by Aaron Wrotkowski
