AEW Rampage Homecoming Results: Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights (2024)

Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage of AEW Rampage on January 12.

This is the homecoming episode of Rampage with its return to Dailys Place in Jacksonville, Florida, which is where all of the pandemic episodes were filmed.

This venue is special to AEW, and especially to the fans in that area who have attended multiple shows.

This week's Rampage included four matches, but the biggest was easily Eddie Kingston defending the Continental Crown Championship against ROH pure champion, Wheeler Yuta.

Let's take a look at everything that happened on Friday's episode of Rampage.

Yuta and Kingston were already in the ring and ready to go when the show got started. Yuta tried to play some mind games early on by rolling out of the ring to taunt The Mad King.

Yuta used his technical ability to wrestle Kingston down to the mat and put him in a variety of holds. You could see the frustration growing on Kingston's face every time Yuta took him down.

Eventually, the continental champion began to find his footing and ways to counter Yuta. The challenger got in a surprising amount of offense, but it felt like he was never able to go more than a minute without Kingston finding a way to fight back.

This was a slow, methodical match for most of the time, so it might not be as exciting for some fans as other bouts featuring these men, but this was still good in its own way. It just wasn't as energetic as some might have hoped.

Even though the ending with Kingston retaining was predictable, they did a good job making it look like Yuta had a fighting chance. The Mad King won with the Northern Lights Bomb, but Yuta seemed to earn his respect.

Result: Eddie Kingston defeated Wheeler Yuta

Grade: B-

Notable Moments and Observations

Matt Sydal was already in the ring when the show returned from a break for Swerve Strickland's entrance. That alone said everything about who would win this match.

Swerve has been as hot as he has ever been lately, so nobody came into this expecting Sydal to win, but not having a televised entrance can sometimes make things too predictable.

That being said, this was an short b ut fun match between one of the most versatile athletes in Swerve and one of the best high-flyers in Sydal. Swerve got the win to continue his hot streak.

Result: Swerve Strickland defeated Matt Sydal

Grade: C+

The next matchup saw Hikaru Shida take on Queen Aminata, who has been showing up a lot more in AEW and ROH recently.

The former AEW women's champion definitely had control more often than Aminata, but it wasn't by a lot. This was a competitive exchange between two women who are both great at what they do.

Shida won the match but they embraced and shared a nice moment of sportmanship after it was over.

Result: Hikaru Shida defeated Queen Aminata

Grade: C+

Notable Moments and Observations

This week's main event was a trios match with Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds and John Silver taking on Jake Hager, Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang.

After having some cake shoved into his face, Angelo Parker started the match for his team against Silver.

The Dark Order was controlling the pace all through the first half leading into the break, so Parker, Matt Menard and Hager regrouped at ringside during the picture-in-picture portion of the match.

Negative One used Hager's own hat to taunt him and distract his team so The Dark Order could rebound and score the win with a double-team sequence on Hager. This was fun for what it was but nothing super memorable happened.

Result: The Dark Order defeated the former JAS

Grade: C

Notable Moments and Observations

This week's Rampage didn't feature anything memorable or must-see, but it was a solid hour of wrestling nonetheless.

All of the results were as predictable as could be, but most pro wrestling matches are like that these days. What matters is making it believable that the eventual loser stands a chance of winning.

If you only see one thing from this show, make it Kingston vs. Yuta, but Shida and Aminata was also decent, it just needed a bit more time.

Grade: C