AEW Rampage Results: Winners, Grades, Reaction and Highlights from April 8

Welcome to Bleacher Report's coverage and recap of All Elite Wrestling Rampage on April 8. 

Following his big win at Supercard of Honor, new ROH pure champion Wheeler Yuta took on Jon Moxley on Friday's show.

Another member of Best Friends was also in action when Trent Beretta took on one of the men trying to recruit Yuta to the Blackpool Combat Club, Bryan Danielson.

Willow Nightingale took on Red Velvet, and Swerve Strickland battled QT Marshall. Let's take a look at everything that happened during Friday's show. 

Rampage opened with Danielson and Beretta already in the ring waiting for the ref to call for the bell. Danielson started off in control, but Beretta didn't let him keep the upper hand for long. 

This bout felt a bit more personal than it usually would because of what is going on with Yuta and Blackpool Combat Club. Even though Beretta seems to want nothing to do with Yuta, he also appears to hold some kind of grudge with BCC over it. 

Danielson has been lauded for his technical ability for years, but people shouldn't sleep on Beretta. He has been a great in-ring performer for a long time, and seeing him get the chance to show it against someone like The American Dragon was a lot of fun. 

This was a solid back and forth exchange that had some nice sequences, but it slowed down more than expected in a few places. They spent more time taunting each other than usual, so that may have had something to do with it. 

Beretta had a few moments where he came close to winning, but the outcome of this was never in question. Danielson was always going to win, and he did so with the Lebell Lock. 

Grade: B+

Notable Moments and Observations

• Having William Regal on commentary was great. He was excellent at that job in NXT. He offered some good insights and put over the regular AEW commentators for making his job easy. 
• Beretta hit the steel ring steps hard at one point. He seemed fine, but it looked and sounded painful. 
• Danielson is doing heel things like jumping jacks to celebrate prematurely, but the crowd loves him too much to boo anything he does, especially since he is paired with Moxley and Regal now. 
• There was a scary spot when Beretta countered a superplex and landed on Danielson's neck. It did not appear to cause any major damage, but it didn't look like fun, either. 

We got a brief segment with Scorpio Sky, Ethan Page and Dan Lambert in the ring, with Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti coming out to confront them from the stage. It led to a verbal altercation. 

The next match saw Swerve take on Marshall in singles competition. While the head trainer of The Nightmare Factory got in some early offense, Strickland used his speed to quickly gain the upper hand. 

AEW easily could have booked this as a short bout with Swerve getting an easy win, but this ended up being more competitive than expected. Marshall controlled most of the action throughout the commercial break, but Swerve began to make his comeback shortly after we returned to the show. 

This was a good but forgettable match. It was done to pad Swerve's win-loss record a bit and get him some action before he and Keith Lee take on Powerhouse Hobbs and Ricky Starks. Swerve won with a kick to the back of the head. 

Grade: B-

Notable Moments and Observations

• There was a backstage segment before the match with Lexy Nair trying to interview Hook. He didn't say anything and tried to leave. Danhausen popped out of a garbage can to curse him, but Hook just threw his chip bag in the trash with him. 
• Nick Comoroto was at ringside but had no impact on the outcome. 
• Starks announced a tag match with him and Hobbs taking on Lee and Swerve next Wednesday. That should be a lot of fun. 

Nightingale and Velvet fought in a qualifying match to see who would get a spot in the women's Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. 

They used a lot of holds, counters and takedowns to keep this competitive without feeling like one of them was being more of a heel. Whenever two babyfaces fight, it tends to be a little more technical because they aren't trying to hurt each other. 

Velvet was the first one to utilize several strikes in the corner, which was probably the right call because Nightingale is too beloved by her fans to be the heel in any equation. 

It seemed like both women had this match in the bag at a few different points, so it became a lot less predictable as it went on. However, Velvet still managed to score the win. 

This was alright, but there was a serious lack of chemistry between these two opponents. Their next encounter should be much better. 

Grade: C+

Notable Moments and Observations

• Velvet tried to avoid a moonsault, but Nightingale ended up kind of hitting her anyway. They sold it as if she missed it completely. 
• Nightingale got some props from the announcers for her performance at Supercard of Honor last Friday. 
• That pounce from Nightingale would make Monty Brown proud. 
• Velvet began to act a bit more like a heel toward the end. She was getting some boos, too. Perhaps she will turn at some point during the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. 

The main event saw the newly crowned ROH pure champion, Yuta, take on Moxley. During the pre-match interview with Mark Henry, both men seemed fired up for the bout to take place. 

Yuta attacked Moxley as he was making his entrance by hitting a suicide dive. They fought into the crowd before the match even had a chance to officially begin. 

Yuta stayed in the fight for the most part, but once Moxley busted him open by throwing him into the steel steps, Yuta was on defense and trying his best to create some space between himself and Mox. 

This was easily the best match of the night. It showcased the abilities of Yuta after his successful performance at Supercard of Honor—when he won the ROH Pure Championship—and made him look tougher than he ever has before. 

Yuta managed to kick out of the Paradigm Shift twice, but he was unable to keep himself from passing out to a rear-naked choke. This was an absolute barn-burner of a match and a fantastic way to close the show.

Yuta was already thought of as a solid worker by most fans, but now people are going to see how good he is at the performance side of the business. Regal shook his hand to end the show on a high note. 

Grade: A

Notable Moments and Observations

• The dive Yuta hit to Mox during his entrance looked awesome on camera. 
• Moxley telling Yuta to chop him and then immediately kicking him in the face was hilarious. 
• The spot when Yuta dove on to Mox to put him through a table looked much better than most of AEW's ringside table spots. 
• Danielson and Regal coming down to show Yuta respect after the match was a great moment.