AEW Rampage Results: Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights from July 14

Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage and recap of AEW Rampage on July 14 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

This week's show featured a few random matches. Lance Archer battled Trent Beretta, Naturally Limitless took on Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang, and Konosuke Takeshita was in action.

However, the most important match of the night was the semifinal bout in the women's Owen Hart Cup Tournament between Athena and Willow Nightingale.

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

Naturally Limitless vs. Cool Hand Ang and Daddy Magic

AEW

Rampage.

Dustin Rhodes, Keith Lee, Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang were in the ring and ready to go when Rampage went on the air.

Lee and Rhodes took control right away and used some double-team tactics to keep both opponents on defense.

The Jericho Appreciation Society members found ways to turn the tables on them, but it never felt like Lee and Rhodes were in danger of losing this match.

Unfortunately, it feels like the role AEW has assigned to Matt Menard and Angelo Parker is to put other people over on television, which is a shame because they are a talented tag team with more to offer than that.

This was a decent match that served the purpose of giving Lee and Rhodes a win. It will be interesting to see how long AEW keep this team together. It feels like they are in a holding pattern until they have better plans for Lee as a solo act.

Winners: Naturally Limitless

Grade: B-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Rhodes always has great face paint. He has gotten very good at changing it up to keep it fresh. 
• Menard and Parker have some good classic double-team moves in their arsenal. They aren't super fancy but they get the job done. 

Taya Valkyrie vs. Izzy McQueen, Lance Archer vs. Trent Beretta

AEW

Rampage.

Taya Valkyrie was in action this week against someone by the name of Izzy McQueen. La Wera Loca scored the win in less than a minute.

Toni Storm and Saraya made their way out and talked a little trash. Valkyrie challenged Storm to a match for the AEW women's title at Battle of the Belts and goaded her into accepting.

The match was nothing but at least this set up a title match for Saturday, so that's something.

Winner: Taya Valkyrie

Grade: Incomplete

The next match saw The Best Friends' Beretta take on a man who has had a lot of start-and-stop runs in AEW, Archer.

The Murderhawk Monster attacked Beretta as soon as he got to the ring, which Beretta would have seen coming if he had ever watched a single Archer match.

Every time Beretta would try to fight back, the powerhouse would take him down. At one point, Roberts took a cheap shot at Beretta while Archer had the ref occupied just because he could.

Beretta had a little bit of momentum after the commercial break and hit a piledriver for a two-count, but Archer eventually recovered and won the match. This was much longer than the squash we got with Valkyrie but the result was the same.

This gave Archer a solid win and set him up for a title shot at BOTB when he challenged Orange Cassidy for the international title. OC accepted to save Best Friends from taking more damage.

Winner: Lance Archer

Grade: C+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Why did Saraya and Storm even go out there? If they were trying to recruit Valkyrie, they did a really bad job of it. 
• It's good to see Jake Roberts back on the road with AEW. He and Archer are a good fit together, but we don't need to see him getting physical. 
• Beretta barely got Archer over for the half-and-half suplex, which is understandable. 

Konosuke Takeshita vs. Mentallo

AEW

Rampage.

Don Callis accompanied Takeshita to the ring for his match against a masked wrestler by the name of Mentallo, who Callis claimed was Kenny Omega's friend and first training partner.

Callis gave a promo before sicking Takeshita on him. Mentallo actually managed to get in a few strikes before Takeshita took him down and beat him mercilessly. Takeshita picked up an easy win in just a couple of minutes.

Winner: Konosuke Takeshita

Grade: C-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Takeshita trying to calm himself down after dishing out a beating was a nice touch. 

Athena vs. Willow Nightingale

AEW

Rampage.

The main event of this week's show was the match between Athena and Willow that should have happened last week on Collision but was delayed until tonight due to an injury to Willow.

If you are not watching ROH, go out of your way to watch what Athena has been doing. She has been carrying that brand on her back as its best champion, and her run has made her arguably one of the best champions in all of wrestling.

Athena was not only looking to advance in the Owen Hart tourney, but she was looking to avenge some previous losses to Athena in Ring of Honor. The Fallen Goddess showed more of her aggressive side whenever she was in control, but as soon as WIllow would gain some momentum, you could feel the crowd getting behind her.

These two have developed good chemistry as opponents, so this was another competitive and entertaining encounter to add to the list they have built up.

After a hard-fought battle, Willow was able to score the win with a pinning combination to advance to the finals where she will face Soho for the Owen Hart Cup on Collision.

Winner: Willow Nightingale

Grade: B

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Notable Moments and Observations

• In case you were wondering, WIllow lost the NJPW Strong women's title, which is why she didn't have it with her. 
• Athena is so good at breaking down a specific body part. She did a lot to Athena's leg to wear her down. 

The Final Word

Other than Athena vs. Willow, there wasn't much on this week's episode of Rampage that you needed to see.

The purpose of this week's show was to set things up for future shows. The main event set up the finals of the women's Owen Hart tournament, Valkyrie got herself a shot at the women's title, and Archer staked his claim to the International Championship.

Recent episodes of Rampage have seen an increase in quality, but this felt more like a filler episode than anything else, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

We need shows like this sometimes to make other shows feel more important. Saturday's combo of Collision and Battle of the Belts now has a couple more big matches for fans to anticipate, so hopefully that show goes off without a hitch.

Grade: C+