JLM

Collision 25/05/24

Opening segment was a fine go home angle for Mox/Takeshita but Callis' promo seemed to go on forever. 

Bloody/pissed off Ospreay promo was excellent. Completely different from any of the in-ring promos he's been doing and I thought he smashed this one as well. What a revelation he's been as a promo. 

Tanahashi was a lovely surprise, though was worried for him trying to get steady on the top for the high fly flow. His poor knees. Loved him doing the Garcia dance.

Bucks video was hilarious. Particularly appreciated that it had the Khan/Perry hug in it. 

Oh my god Little Penta was too cute, especially when he wandered off during the Cero Miedo. Good little tag match, wonderful to see the Lucha Brothers back at it. Love a Rey Fenix hot tag. 

Bryan Keith did not seem very cool getting in Jericho's face off the back of being DOUBLE tapped out. Big Bill stood next to Arkady Aura was quite a visual. I also had to look up the name Arkady Aura because I've heard people say it half a dozen times now but still couldn't work out how one would spell it. 

O'Reilly Squash was fine. KM has a good little niche there as a giant jobber for babyfaces to beat. 

Absolutely tremendous go home promo from Willow. The feud has given her more of an edge, more braggadocious and confident than ever before, gloves off with the trash talk about Mone, but still the most likeable babyface imaginable. All the signs are indeed there for Stokeley and Statlander to turn and cost her the belt tomorrow but maaan I really hope to be surprised. It's definitely the true main event of Double or Nothing. 

Rocky Romero making one last appeal to Trent Berretta was very effective and genuinely quite sad. 

Embarrassing rap from Caster. As soon as I saw the participants for this I only wanted to see Brody and Toa face off, so was happy they made this the throughline of the whole match. Not great that the brawl between Daddy Ass and Brian Cage leading to everyone going backstage was not shown. 

Spooky Copeland promo again. I don't want House of Blood and I don't want him in House of Black. Very uneasy about where this is going. The cage match will be overbooked madness and I expect it'll be quite good fun despite all the nonsense surrounding it. 

Utterly savage promo from Toni Storm, bloody hell. Hearing her do an incredibly pissed off and largely serious promo in this character's voice was very cool. 

Nice to see Lelyla Hirsch in a slightly more competitive match, I've also been enjoying everything Mariah May does lately. 

Outstanding video package for Christian/Swerve, tied all of the history together beautifully and yet more phenomenal promo work from Christian.

Thoroughly entertaining main event. I have missed Double J so much. Him vs Danielson was gold, and Jarrett vs Aubrey Edwards is also secretly one of the best feuds in wrestling.

No  blow away matches but another enjoyable Collision with some strong final go home segments/vignettes/promos for Double or Nothing. 

Shockingly shit promo and rap on Rampage last week as well. He seems to have given up entirely. A couple of times he's come across as so petulant with it that it feels intentional. I don't mean as a work either, more that he's pissed off at how far The Acclaimed have fallen off and he's having a strop about it in the form of shit promos. 

Rampage 24/05/24

Solid opener from Romero and Pac. Pac's bumps off DDTs are truly nutty. 

Samoa Joe trying to mentor Hook and save him from the Jericho vortex is the only thing I'm currently enjoying about this angle. 

Credit to Isaiah Kassidy, the Hardys/Brother Zay stink made him fast forward material for me for a good while there, but he was excellent in that Samoa Joe match recently and even better in this one against RUSH. I like that they teased exactly the same squash as last week. Good fire from Kassidy when he finally started to show signs of life and stand up for himself. The crowd was completely asleep during the initial ass kicking and he got them engaged by the end. Can't wait for RUSH to get stuck into something real, it's so great to have him back. Marq Quen's return was very short lived wasn't it?

Main event was fine. It definitely seemed like Statlander was in Willow's shadow during their entrance here. She went for high fives and hugs and then just sort of half heartedly copied what Willow was doing instead. I really don't want Statlander to turn but the hints have definitely been there. Would have liked to see a bit more of Alex Windsor as I know she's pretty highly rated. What she did get to do looked good though. Post match did the job. So intrigued to see what happens on Sunday and hope they have the bottle to let Willow win. 

Dynamite 22/05/24

Nice hot open to the show with the Ospreay/OC super team up. Fun tag match and effective post-match beatdowns. 

Sonjay Dutt's suit was quite something. His promos are beyond ridiculous but I do enjoy them in the right doses. 

BCG promo started off fine. Austin not getting a nickname works for me every time, they had the people on board, then went in too hard on the "how to pronounce Pac" bit which did not land AT ALL. Was cringing a bit when he went back to it. Enjoyed the Pac Promo once again and always happy to see Death Triangle. 

Big Bill is a really fun prick heel and a more than capable giant in-ring, it's sad to see him doing this. Was also disappointed in the three way match. I thought these three should have just full sprinted at each other like nutters until the finish, but it felt ploddy and disjointed and didn't really come together. Unexpected and somewhat interesting finish though. 

Solid squash for Takeshita, always a pleasure to see him wrestle, don't see it nearly enough. Mox anti-promo was excellent, really sold it like he decided to do it on the fly as well. That's going to be a belter of a match. 

Swerve looked cool as fuck lording it over The Bucks backstage. It's not the main direction but I love that they're constantly reminding us he has no time or respect for these pricks at all. It's the most wonderfully pro wrestling thing that Swerve is now the babyface in a match against Nick Wayne. Tony Schiavone trying to do a "something something Jones" on commentary and getting roasted by the AEW Dark bros for his failure was gold. Post match was loads of fun. Particularly enjoyed Swerve getting one more shot in on Killswitch in the middle of the chase, and was so happy to see Prince Nana return. Christian got away again but Swerve still looked strong here, defeating Nick Wayne, thwarting the standard Killswitch surprise attack *and* getting some digs in on Christian when he usually gets away unscathed. 

Black/O'Reilly was a really good match, another perfectly matched opponent for O'Reilly. Spooky Copeland is the definitely the worst AEW Copeland. I miss the Cope Open. 

Women's tag was great fun. The commentators confirming that Terry Funk was definitely not "on-kilter" also got me here. I do love this announce team. Glad they've completely dropped the idea of Deeb being a babyface. Toni still sometimes plays sort of heel but in practise in front of crowds she is always a babyface, Mariah has been a babyface for a few months now as well. Here the whole match was the classic heat on the babyface leading into hot tag. Deeb is a natural heel, I'll pretend she didn't do the promo about her seizures and I'll shut up about it now they've pulled the trigger on the full heel turn. 

Casino Gauntlet match next week will be amazing. The one for the International Title shot at Daily's place the other week was a belter, this one for a world title shot with bigger names and presumably a bunch of surprise entrants from other promotions. Just book it for the whole two hours I'd watch it. 

Short and sweet promo from the Gunns backstage. Again I'm impressed with how good Colten sounds these days. 

That staredown between Singh and Danielson was just marvellous. I've seen giants vs little guys before, but the difference here seemed completely surreal. It's shame we didn't get to see what they had planned for the table. The match was Satnam Singh's best as far as I can recall, certainly a memorable spectacle and Danielson got as much out of him as could be expected. Lovely to see Double J back and the punch through the guitar was a brilliant spot. Tony Khan being the one to get Darby back on site was a nice touch. The flame thrower looked great, what a ridiculous way to end the show. 

As nutty as a lot of this show was, pretty much everything was in service of the Double or Nothing build and I thought it all did the job on that front. I don't want flamethrowers every week but it was a cool novelty spot and I had a good time with the episode. 

Swordfish always springs to mind. Unfortunately the slow motion explosion doesn’t look as good now as it did 23 years ago, but it’s still comfortably the best thing in the movie for me and stuck with me as a very memorable opening.

18 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

This has been one of the major issues that AEW has had in the past year. A-B towns used for the 2nd show. 

Yeah 100%, that Vancouver crowd for Collision was absolutely rabid, clearly been desperate for a show almost like a European crowd and I did think “why the hell didn’t they get Dynamite?” 

It does happen, but I like to think I was just discussing the criticism in good faith on what is, after all, a discussion forum. People are quick to make the “AEW die hard” and “AEW police” comments but it doesn’t happen in WWE threads. People will watch AEW and say “oh this boring AEW habit of putting on long matches with obvious outcomes” and then I watch Backlash where the entire PPV is exactly that,  and see Supremo get ripped apart for saying it was a glorified house show instead of a B show. And nobody says “oh WWE defense force strikes again” it’s just considered to be lots of people disagreeing with him. 

I don’t think it should happen for either promotion and I’m not trying to turn this into WWE vs AEW. I watch both, please if anyone thinks I’m an AEW tribalist read my Wrestlemania or Backlash posts. I can’t sit through three hours of RAW but I still watch what I can and watch/enjoy the PPVs in full. It does feel like AEW is held to a higher standard on here though, and if people are overzealous or whiny in their defense at times I think that is a factor. 

Obviously your review of one episode is going to be based on one episode. I think i can piece together the logic of that concept. Your review of the state of the entire promotion based on the one episode just seemed a bit hyperbolic.  
 

Like I could watch that one episode of Collision earlier this month with over 6000 in attendance and say AEW attendances are amazing and it’s all packed houses and hot crowds and bright lights, we’re in 2021 again!!! But that would be unreasonable to say because over the course of the month they won’t all be like that. 

Your opinion on the quality of the show is of course subjective and I’m not taking issue with how much you enjoyed it as that would be mad, just saying that this episode was far more crash TV than a typical one and also had a particularly poor crowd, so saying they should stop touring and comparing them to WCW 2000 seemed a little bit over the top. 
 

I’m not trying to stop anyone discussing their opinion of the show or be the AEW police (this is the only place I discuss wrestling to try and avoid tribal fan bullshit like that)  just offering a bit of balance/perspective. 

It’s the “angles” and “arenas” bits that feel like you’re extrapolating based on one episode though. It was an utterly batshit episode in front of a particularly low crowd. One of the lowest this month and by far one of the most mental episodes. Dynamite (and especially Collision) does not do things like this every week. Also as I mentioned, there have been 5-6000 attended shows this month, which is comparable to the bright lights/packed houses era. 
 

Business is down, I don’t disagree that booking smaller venues and packing them is better than not filling big ones, but they’re not doing weekly car crash Russo TV and the crowds aren’t this bad every episode, so it just feels drastic to make the 2000 WCW comparison. The average attendance is lower but AEW has been in the 2-6000 range outside of PPVs and specials for most of its run and it still is. Again not trying to say the lower ratings and attendances aren’t a thing, they definitely are and it is really shit when the episodes have a a really small crowd and the show suffers for it, but I do think it is being overstated. 

You won’t get much disagreement on the Jericho stuff or Malakai Black spooky bollocks. 
 

I think it’s a bit of a doom and gloom outlook based on one episode though. 
 

Dynamite 01/05 5,377, Collision on 11/05 had 6,600, Dynamite 08/05 4,800, Dynasty 6,600. 
 

No doubt the shows where it’s 2500-3000 look and sound bad when they still book out big arenas and there has been much discussion of that on here, but I don’t think we’re at coming off the road territory. WWE is hot again, the AEW initial buzz/novelty has worn off, it’s much more variable depending on markets etc. On average attendances are down, I’m not trying to bury my head in the sand on that, but I do think people get very hyperbolic about it. 

Yep, big trophy and automatic entry into next year’s to defend it. Remember when the Owen Hart Cup winners got belts as well? Madness. 

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

Daft car angles, crazy nutcases messing around with fire, blood baths, babyface World Champions outsmarting everyone, heavy blood angles, big surprise returns where guys come back jacked to the gills, genuine laugh-out-loud humour, commentators making each other corpse, and when all else fails, just doing mad visuals to keep you hooked. Just fucking look at it!

Best episode of Crash TV I ever did see.

Danielson “One in a billion you say? Well ACKSHUALLY:”

Rampage 18/04/24

O'Reilly/Moriarty is essentially a mirror match so not surprising it was pretty good. 

Max Caster's promos are increasingly difficult to get through. Bloody hell. 

RUSH vs Cody Chhun was my favourite match on the card. I know it was about 10 seconds long but god damn that Bull's Horns. Rewatched it about five times. I don't understand how he does thay without shattering people's faces. Just a wildly unnecessary post-match beatdown too. So very, very unwarranted. I couldn't stop laughing. I bloody love RUSH. 

Purazzo/Renegade was a fine semi-squash. I enjoy the Purazzo/Rosa feud, and it's much more effective now that Purazzo is doing more shithousery and ducking Rosa. Look forward to the rematch. 

Danielson vs Singh is clearly Danielson on his final full time year setting himself a challenge and I can't wait to see if he pulls it off, but Sonjay saying it's a paid hit arranged by The Bucks was quite a fun explanation. 

Max Caster's rap also not good. He seems to have completely checked out. Bowens vs Cage was decent. 

Nothing much going on in this episode, RUSH murdering a guy for no reason was the best bit. 

Collision 18/04/24

Great opener from Osprey and Shane Taylor. Taylor has bene consistently brilliant in this role for a while now. His offense looks fantastic, he talks shit, he looks intimidating, can have a good match with anyone and can absorb infinite losses. The added threat of Ogogo's punch on the outside only adds to it. As I've said many times by this point, I am loving Osprey against larger opponents. I'm continually impressed with the stuff he's able to hit against them too, did not think he'd be hitting Taylor with a Stormbreaker! Roddy and Nigel vs Schiavone on commentary was a good laugh here too. 

Good promos from BCC. Claudio managed to stay on message and finish his promo without derailing! He's been so close several times, where he'll sound great for a bit, have some good lines and an idea of his message, then he'll lose the thread or go on for 20 seconds too long while Mox has to stand there trying to guess when he's done. Here it was simple. Lot of people talk about being great and this being their dream but they don't live it. He shows you how great he is by being great in the ring every week. That's it. That's all Claudio needs to say. He genuinely does do it all in the ring and that is fine. 

Hook and Johnny TV was fine. Nice to see the TVs making more main roster appearances. 

Really enjoyed Shibata/Romero, some proper wrasslin' this one. Classic submission/limb work stuff on both sides, and especially loved that it finished with a tap out from a figure four. So rare to see that unless it's someone's finisher. 

Bryan Keith vs Boulder is something I would skip on an episode of ROH TV without even thinking. At least they knew that and made it three minutes, but 100% agree with LaGoosh that with this roster it is inexcusable to put this on the show. I like that Bryan Keith is going with the diamond dust as his finish, was stupid for a guy his size to use a tiger driver. 

Pac's promo was wonderful. Absolutely adored it. They are some FUNNY CHAPS. HILARIOUS in fact. The accent is obviously a factor, but it's everything about it for me at the moment. The delivery, the facial expressions, the choice of words, he just kills it every time and I love it. Ross No-Bull. Bullet Club Gold entrance seamlessly transitioning into the Pac beatdown reveal was fucking GENIUS. The additional little touch of Colten Gunn looking all dishevelled and out of breath was a great detail, and Jay White doing the shortest promo of his life was perfect. What an interesting and creative way to progress this feud in what must have been 2-3 mins total including the Pac promo. 

Kassidy/Cassidy was a fun little match, though my favourite bit of the segment was Trent's latest modified t-shirt. Long may these continue. 

Broken record here, but seriously is Serena Deeb a babyface or a heel? Her whole in-ring style is just vicious bullying of the opponent. In this match she picked apart Anna Jay to the point where Anna Jay's little bits of offense were hope spots and got cheered by the crowd. She is a heel, everything she does is heelish, but she's been a babyface in her promos. Maybe she'll turn properly at Double or Nothing.

Jack Cartwheel on Collision! Madness. For a 2 minute squash this was amazing. Nick Wayne being a right little prick, insanely frantic pace and Cartwheel just wiping the fuck out on the space flying tiger drop. Excellent. 

Archer and The Righteous vs FTR/Danielson is exactly what I want from a Collision main event. Great hot tag from Brian, monstrous performance from Archer, the signature breathtaking FTR closing stretch and Danny Garcia saving the dy. Lovely. Also I learned in The Righteous' Hey EW episode that Vincent was trained by Spike Dudley, which is presumably why his finish is an assisted Acid Drop. Aww. 
 

Proper variety show episode of Collision there, really whacky set of matches, mostly pretty good fun. 

They actually reintroduced it in AEW in a similar fashion to ECW. 
 

Taz created it because Shane Douglas was injured/refused to face him for the real world title. In AEW Brian Cage (backed by Taz) was denied a shot at Moxley’s world title due to covid quarantine, so Taz handed him the FTW title. 
 

Hook did actually win it in a match over Ricky Starks, when they were both in Team Taz. I absolutely loved Hook going for that title as it was the sort of decades long call back/continuity stuff this whacky medium can provide for us like no other. 

But yeah, I think shots for it should only be on a personal stakes/blood feud basis as it’s a bragging rights title ultimately. Having qualifying matches for it is nonsense really. Let’s blame that part on Jericho, he deserves it. 

FTW is a more debatable one. I see it more as a trinket with sentimental value because of personal/historical significance rather than being a prize issued by a sporting/governing body. It means something for Hook to hold it or for a heel to take it from him, but it doesn’t hold the value of the real titles. 
 

That’s why I thought it was a bit silly that they held a bunch of qualifying matches to get into a number one contender’s match to contest for the unrecognised/unsanctioned title on Collision this week.  
 

Maybe Bear Boulder is a massive Taz fan and has always wanted to hold the FTW belt, maybe The Bucks are huge fans of this title and blocked out a chunk of Collision for people to fight over it. Perhaps Chris Jericho holds sway with the new Elite and they signed off on this for him. Wrestling sure can be pretty dumb. 

12 minutes ago, Fog Dude said:

For Chest's sake

Do not take his name in vain. 

The IWGP world title is the world title of another promotion though, so I don’t really think it counts. It’s featured currently because an AEW wrestler holds it, and it gets mentioned/featured when AEW are doing cross over shows with New Japan. I suspect that said cross over show coming up quite soon is why Mox holds it now.
 

I didn’t include it in the ranking of the AEW men’s singles titles because it isn’t an AEW men’s singles title. 

Vikingo took his AAA Mega Championship to AEW and to TNA when he had it, but it doesn’t belong to either of those promotions and doesn’t factor into how their titles are ranked either. 

I’m personally a fan of cross overs between promotions and travelling champions defending on different stages etc. It is another title on this PPV so if that’s an issue for people then fair enough, can agree to disagree on that. 
 

I don’t think two singles titles in the women’s division is that excessive, and they’ve got a solid story/real life reason for Mercedes to be going after Willow. 

I agree with the men’s singles titles it’s more the unclear ranking of them than the number. 

AEW you’ve got 

World 

Continental/TNT/international 

With those three appearing to be roughly on the same tier. 

WWE you’ve got 

World 

World but not really lol 

Intercontinental 

U.S. 

And as much as I absolutely hate the fake world championship bollocks, I do think those belts are ranked in that order and make sense to me. 

Just saw the suplex onto the guardrail which destroyed Eddie’s knee. Absolutely brutal and a crazy spot to do given how close the guardrail was to the ring. He then dragged himself into the ring and stood back up on it so he could be attacked by the Elite. Fucking wrestlers, man. 

How could you not honestly? They might as well have put up some stuffed animal prizes behind it. Entirely correct decision. 

At the risk of being ostracised, with the Cherry ones I eat all the yoghurt first and then eat the cherry goop at the end. I love the cherry goop too much to water it down with the yoghurt. Crunch corners and all other fruit ones I tip and mix. 

Noooo.  

Dynamite 15/05/25

Opening tag was loads of fun, helped by great heat from this crowd. They were especially hot for Danielson here but they remained strong throughout the show. A few episodes in a row now with hot, noisy crowds and it makes a world of difference. I say this every time he makes these little cameos, but I would have liked more Jeff Cobb. He still produced my favourite spot of the match with his catch on the busaiku knee, I approve of his new beard and I enjoyed his shithousing throughout. No surfing on anyone's back and no Tour of the Islands, but I will take what shetland hoss action I can get. The Deathrider at the end looked of this bloody terrifying. I don't know if Fletcher just took an amazing looking RVD-esque bump off it but man it looked like he smashed the top of his head. 

Copeland/HOB beatdown was good and violent. I'm sure the cage match will deliver. Copeland will make it feel like a massive deal as he has done consistently with his big matches, and the stipulation automatically adds danger and a bit of intrigue. The stupid Uncle Howdy bullshit HOB do when they feud with people is just so tedious though. Stealing wedding rings, printing pictures of people's families and burning them in barrels. They're physically imposing and they do a great beatdown. Just do that. It worked with Mark Briscoe. They attacked him a bunch, he attacked them a bunch, they had some fights. It worked.  

Malakai Black feuds remind me of this sketch: 

I think the only time I've ever found a Malakai Black story engaging was his feud with Velveteen Dream in NXT, and that was 100% down to his opponent. Dream wanted Black to do a spooky-bollocks in his direction but Aleister refused to acknowledge him. So the best feud he's had is the one where he refused to feud with the guy. But yeah, I think the match will deliver and we got the excellent Copeland/Brody match out of this too. Just a shame they get in their own way so much. 

No Kingston in Anarchy in the Arena is a shame. Backstage bit with The Elite was tremendous. Okada's closer was fantastic, Perry is getting better each week in this role and the Reebok Pumps ad was absolutely brilliant. Okada looks like he's having so much fun in this role. 

Bucks vs Daniels/Sydal was the first time I've been engaged by a Matt Sydal match in what must be years. Was a cool idea to use these two for this story and they were both great underdog bayfaces backed by the excellent crowd. Perry did a good job on commentary and man Schiavone is just a treasure. I love him. The shot of him sitting there soaking wet amd going "son of a bitch" nearly took Taz out completely and I can't blame him for it. Firing Daniels was also a great bit of business. Everything worked for me in this segment, absolutely spot on. 

Effortlessly great promo from Toni Storm to follow up. "thanks for knocking me out so I didn't have to listen to any more of your sob story" was a bloody brilliant line. 

This Jerichon run is Sharknado. They saw the market for so-bad-it's-good failed creature feature movies so they made one on purpose. For me that's missing the point. Bad movies where they were trying but the budget/competence of those involved didn't match their ambition have a certain charm to them. Movies where they're going "we're shit but we KNOW we're shit, eh? Eh? EH?" much less so. I don't know if a "please retire" chant is one you can really take ownership of and pretend is heel heat, but he sure did try. Give me Shibata vs Big Bill though. 

Cage and Swerve was a belter! Best match I've seen from Brian Cage in forever. He can do lots of cool stuff but in a singles match I think he needs the right opponent or the right circumstances to make a good match out of it. Swerve and this crowd provided both of those things. Loads of fun moments, though the single biggest holy shit for me was the deadlift brainbuster from Swerve. Genuine holy shit moment for me there. 

Post-match Christian was outstanding as usual. Was quite relieved when the blood stopped spraying out of Swerve's head though, that looked nasty. Only thing that slightly disappointed me was Swerve stopping his attack on Brian Cage when Christian's music started. Just for a brief moment it looked like he was going to carry on anyway and it would have been such a bad ass, trope-defying move to smash Cage's arm and *then* acknowledge Christian. 

Samoa Joe coming in as the voice of the viewer was amazing. Even Samoa Joe the character is acknowledging that Hook's momentum after their fucking amazing world title match up has been completely squandered by his descent into the Jericho vortex. This was a great call back and yes, please, give me the Shibata/Hook/Joe super team up.  

Storm/Cameron was pretty good, could see Storm was having to guide Cameron through it at times but it still turned out fine. Commentary completely breaking down for most of it was hilarious. Still baffling that they've tried to position Deeb as a babyface in this feud though.

Wardlow standing in the background like a complete mug as Osprey calls him a big veiny bellend just about sums up his Undisputed Kingsdom run. Quality promo from Osprey again, Roddy sounded way better than usual too. 

Willow/Mercedes segment was superb. "I walked out as champion and you didn't walk out at all" was spine tingling coming from Willow. Would be a heelish line in most other circumstances but it was perfect here. Every time she's mentioned the injury she's been apologetic and full of regret but she has had more than enough of Mone's shit. Great pop for that line and for the powerbomb. This match feels huge. Despite Mone's promos ranging from passable to god-awful, Willow has ensured this build has still been excellent. 

Good scrap in the main event, I know Dax isn't a popular man round these parts but I always enjoy his work. Genuinely surprising return and a great choice of substitute for Kingston with a true AEW original. 

Thoroughly enjoyable episode that. 

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Jonas Berggen from AOB says it’s about a woman who sleeps with you then moves on, not a woman trying to have lots of babies.