Cassidy defends All-Atlantic title in lumberjack match on Rampage
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Orange Cassidy defends his AEW All-Atlantic Championship against QT Marshall. Plus, Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett team up to take on Private Party and Darby Allin is in action. You can catch AEW Rampage at 10pm et/7pm pt streaming on TSN.ca and the TSN App.
Lumberjack match for the AEW All-Atlantic Championship: "Freshly Squeezed" Orange Cassidy (c) vs. QT Marshall - Since defeating "The Bastard" PAC for the All-Atlantic title in Toronto in October, Orange Cassidy has taken on all comers and doesn't seem to be particularly interested in turning down a challenge. On Wednesday's Dynamite, Cassidy agreed to a match with QT Marshall and his terms - that it be a lumberjack match - without second though. In fact, he already left before Marshall explained his reasoning for a lumberjack match. The traditional lumberjack match rules are fairly straightforward: the ring is surrounded by several other wrestlers who are permitted to attack anybody who leaves the ring in order to get them back in as quickly as possible. For somebody like Marshall, the stipulation could provide the kind of advantage he needs to claim his first title in AEW. This will be the first solo encounter between the two men, but they have shared a ring twice before in AEW with Cassidy beating Marshall twice in multi-man tag-team matches. The match will be Cassidy's sixth defence of his title, having already turned aside the challenges of Katsuyori Shibata, Lee Johnson and Jake Hager, as well as Rush and Preston Vance and Luchasaurus and Rey Fenix in three-way dances. Can Marshall be the man to wrest the gold away from Cassidy?
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Jay Lethal and "The Last Outlaw" Jeff Jarrett (w/ Sonjay Dutt and Satnam Singh) vs. Private Party (Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen) (w/ Matt Hardy) - With Private Party and Matt Hardy's lives currently a living hell with their contracts being owned by Stokely Hathaway and The Firm, the trio must now contend with another faction on Friday night when Kassidy and Quen take on Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. In his short time in AEW, Jeff Jarrett has more than asserted himself, aligning with old friends Lethal and Sonjay Dutt with a plan to get them to the top. The four men have never met before, but the match is an important one for both teams. A win for Lethal and Jarrett would go a long way to staking their claim as a new forced to be reckoned with in AEW, while a win for Quen and Kassidy would show that they're still in control of their own agency even with Hathaway's thumb currently over them. Private Party will also have to be mindful of the monstrous Satnam Singh on the outside, a man eminently capable of changing the face of a match on his own. Which team will come out on top?
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Darby Allin (w/ Sting) vs. Cole Karter (w/ The Factory) - It's a revenge mission on Friday night for Darby Allin. Allin had never crossed paths with Cole Karter before, but that changed in the weeks leading up to Full Gear. Paying QT Marshall for his services, Jay Lethal used Karter to portray the fake Sting in a ruse that led to Jeff Jarrett's arrival in AEW and a vicious beatdown of Allin. Allin and Sting exacted their vengeance in defeating Lethal and Jarrett at the pay-per-view last month and now Allin has set his sights on Karter. For Karter, the match represents one of the biggest tests of his young AEW career thus far. A win over Allin would be a huge feather in Karter's cap and serve as a coming-out party for the 22-year-old Factory member. But that could be easier said than done with an angry Allin determined not to make things easy. Can Karter pick up the massive upset or will Allin make him pay?
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PLUS:
- "The Fallen Goddess" Athena is in action a week before her ROH Women's World Championship match against Mercedes Martinez at Final Battle
- We will hear from AEW World Tag Team Champions The Acclaimed ("Platinum" Max Caster and "The Five-Tool Player" Anthony Bowens) and "Daddy Ass" Billy Gunn
- Seemingly back on the same page, Swerve in Our Glory (Shane "Swerve" Strickland and "Limitless" Keith Lee) make an appearance
- Appearing for the first time since defeating Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, at Full Gear, Saraya sits down with Renee Paquette