AEW Saturday Collision

[Duke]

Have we seen Samoa Joe v Hawaii Jeff before? Id almost pay the price of the show just for that!

[LaGoosh]

22 minutes ago, Duke said:

Have we seen Samoa Joe v Hawaii Jeff before? Id almost pay the price of the show just for that!

It's definitely a much more interesting match than the trios match booked for sure.

[Doog]

Good to see the Hangman vignette, for three reasons really; it means he'll he back soon, it more than likely rules him out of being the Elites wildcard on Dynamite, and on that hopefully means it'll he someone like Brandon Cutler meaning Jarrett can win and progress!

[JLM]

Collision 01/06/24

Spoiler

Collision 01/06/24

Fine promo from Dax. I always appreciate babyfaces acknowledging a loss and vowing to come back stronger. 

Very good opener from Roddy and Lio Rush. Good move to have Roddy jump Rush early and beat him down for the vast majority of it. Roddy's offense always looks great and Rush takes fantastic bumps. The people were firmly behind Rush and his high speed evasion/hope spot stuff is always a crowd pleaser. 

Solid promo from Kyle O'Reilly. "I'm not planning to have a great match with you, just to beat you as efficiently and violently as possible" was a good angle for a promo on Ospreay. 

On Rampage I thought it was neat that Roddy claimed he was coming out next in the Casino Gauntlet. Not neat enough for him to be able to ask for a world title shot and get one immediately though. That's silly. 

Garcia/Shibata vs Workhorseman was always going to be a quality match. Garcia's devastating looking swinging neckbreakers and the crowd's huge reaction for Drake's moonsault were the highlights. I love the Shibata/Garcia team up so much. 

Statlander's heel promos are so corny but that is on brand for her so I will allow it. I like that she's still irritated by Stokeley most of the time. 

Thunder Rosa/Reina Dorada was odd. Was billed as if it was going to be a match but they just sort of hit each other a bit too hard a couple of times and then Rosa won. Disappointing. 

Cage of Agony squash was nice and violent. They launched a jobber very high at the end. 

Johnny TV vs Claudio was good fun. Claudio never misses and I am such a fan of the Mr and Mrs Television. Nice simple manager shenanigans, sneaky low blows, good old fashioned heelin'. 

Very very slick video package for the Premier Athletes. They've been doing these on ROH TV as well but I currently still do not care at all. Funny that Sterling had to say Daivari's in the group because he's got loads of money and wanted to SURROUND himself with Premier athletes, because otherwise he does not fit this group at all. It's better than The Trustbusters I guess. 

STP vs West Coast Wrecking Crew was mostly a showcase for Shane Taylor to destroy some guys. This is fine by me. Him tagging in and yelling "THE TECHNICAL PORTION OF THE EVENING IS OVER!" was the best bit. 

I was about to skip The Iron Savages promo because I cannot fucking stand their schtick, but then Killswitch beat the piss out of all three of them before I had a chance. Guess Killswitch has been watching ROH TV as well. Somebody had to do it. 

Although everything on the show had been perfectly fine, I have to say Ospreay's arrival for the main event injected some sorely needed star power into this episode. The crowd had reacted well enough to the big spots and cheered for the babyfaces and booed the heels, but they had been served up an extremely middle-of-the-road set of matches on the whole with nothing to break them up. This was excellent though. Might have just been fatigue from the rest of the card but it felt a little bit too long. However, once they got into the basic story of O'Reilly going after the left arm and Ospreay trying to overcome the injury it got very good. Then, as with most Ospreay matches, the last 8 minutes or so were spectacular.

Very middling episode of Collision highlighted by a strong main event. 

Collision 08/06/24 

Spoiler

Collision 08/06

FTR vs Claudio/Yuta was tremendous. Between this match and his return on Dynamite, I hadn't realised how much I'd missed Yuta until he came back. Great use of the time limit draw. Heats up a rematch, protects both teams, more heat on the EVPS, the live crowd was satisfied with the beatdown of Cutler *and* it's an important reminder that "with a 20 minute time limit" can actually be relevant for TV matches. 

New Statlander presentation was very cool. Still looked like she was trying not to smile walking down to the ring, but again I like that she hasn't changed her whole personality with the heel turn. She's still a dork but she isn't looking out for other people any more. Bit more cocky, bit less humble, a lot more selfish but still the same character. I liked Stokeley getting a bit more serious here and doing a bit of a Paul Heyman promo for her. Would like more of that from him. 

Dustin and Johnny TV was a bit too long and not the smoothest but once again I am a fan of the Televisions and their antics, and the people were behind Dustin which helped it along. Uncharacteristically bad promo from Dustin though. Thanking the camera men outta nowhere, repeating himself and losing his train of thought. All over the place. 

Zack Sabre Jr vs Orange Cassidy will be outstanding. 

Premier Athletes squash was fine. Should be Josh Woods instead of Daivari though. 

Scorpio Sky's gimmick should be like Emmalina where we get loads of promos and vignettes but then he doesn't return.

Nice to see Lady Frost on the main shows again. Loving the intrigue they're building for this Owen tournament. Statlander going for the TBS/Women's title double, Willow gunning for Statlander, Mariah competing for a shot at her mentor. Really good stuff. 

STP/Top Flight Promo.. Shane Taylor tried his best but maaan I do not care about Top Flight and Andretti. They are so painfully dull and there isn't a good promo amongst them

Joe and the boys jumping the Premier Athletes was superb, as was the little chat about Lacrosse on the way. Love that Joe teaching Hook the ways includes doing classic heel Joe stuff despite them being babyfaces. It's OK if they had it comin'. 

Nice dominant win for Danny Garcia. Interested to see how they get him to this International title shot he's called for.

Oranga Cassidy's promo was excellent. About as intense a promo as you'll hear from him. Big fan of the Black shades/black t shirt/Where is My Mind version of OC during this very difficult time for him. Cracking main event. A series of bangers from Kyle against Ospreay, Copeland and Cassidy lately. For all the debate about how to present O'Reilly, the story being told with his results has been effective so far. He destroys his regular opponents in minutes, but when it comes time to main event the show against a big name he'll have a belting 20 minute match but ultimately fail to get it done. Willow making the save to a big pop and OC being embraced by his new friends at the end was a great feel good ending. OC really needed that hug. 

Much better episode than last week. 

 

Collision 15/06/24 

Spoiler

Collision 15/06

BCC vs TMDK/Romero/Rush was a solid opener. Not on the level of the trios match from Dynamite this week but still good stuff. Built to Moxley's hot tag effectively, some fun pairings in there and a typically hot closing stretch. 

Max Caster on the mic is just death right now. It's horrible to watch. 

Purazzo/Rosa was a good brawl, highlighted by Rosa's awesome looking running/flying dropkick using a table as a ramp. Novel finish too with Purazzo stealing the camera, and a great visual post match with Rosa getting the stoppage win and the posing stood on top of Rosa hung up in the ropes. It's a shame the crowd for this episode wasn't the hottest as I thought this match deserved a better reaction than it got. 

Dalton Castle had one of his best entrance monologues to date, letting us know Hechicero borrowed his Sega Game Gear in 1996 and never returned it. Didn't know they had this kind of heat. He even namedropped Sonic Triple Trouble. Match was disappointingly short and did not get nearly as much Hechicero sauce as I'd have liked.

Typically strong promo from Christian Cage. The bit about going for the trios titles as a path to the World Title was oddly a bit of a throw away one sentence line, presumably because heels currently hold the titles so would have been a bit awkward for him to call them out before the closing angle. Like that it kept the Luchasaurus stuff ticking over nicely, and the "it's OK" to the lovingly painted portrait made me laugh. Killswitch is still less of a punk than Wardlow. At least Killswitch is on the shows. 

Quality promo from the bang bang gang, again it's so great to have Juice Robinson back. Interesting that they said it won't be for the titles because Jay White isn't in the match. I thought the anointing of Juice as one quarter of the trios champions was implying the Freebird rule for their defenses going forward. Guess not.

Moriarty/Martin was fine but it is such a cold match to me. The STP/Top Flight and Andretti feud is not compelling at all because Top Flight and Andretti are so very bland. Lio Rush making the save afterwards was mildly interesting, if only because I'd like to see him against Shane Taylor. 

Kyle O'Reilly/Anthony Henry was fine. Back to the usual routine of Kyle dominating lower tier opponents in between his 15-20 minute banger defeats against name opponents. Guessing his continued failure in the important matches will turn his head towards Undisputed Kingom. Maybe. I dunno. I don't really care. As I said before, I like Roddy + Henchmen as an act but the faction as a whole I'd like to see scrapped. 

Main event was good but not quite the Collision main event trios barn burner I was hoping for given the teams involved. I was hoping it would be a belter after a fairly flat show overall and it was only "pretty good". I did like babyface House of Black though. Malakai's hot tag was the best bit of the match and was a reminder of how he is best used as the final boss/captain of the HOB trios team. Hopefully this will stop them getting in their own way so much. Or maybe they'll steal Nick Wayne's boots and throw them down a well or something. 

Vey "meh" episode of Collision there with a below average crowd. 
 

Collision 22/06/24

Spoiler

Collision 22/06

Very happy to see Hook/Joe/Shibata starting the show. Can we get a team name for these lads. Highlight was Shibata doing the walk away spot this time and Joe being even more thrilled than he was when Hook did it. 

I share Juice Robinson's outrage that they're not allowed to Freebird rule the titles. 

Private Party worked hard in the tag match, Big Bill looked good and his new trunks with the Uncle Tony quote are brilliant. However, Big Bill should be doing anything but this and I don't care about the feud at all. It also went on for far too long and had Jericho fumbling about in his pants for much of it. Also you've assembled this incredibly cool trios team of Hook/Joe/Shibata and their first PPV outing is bloody Jericho again.  

Okada/Ultimo Guerrero, deary me. I did wonder why they'd shown video packages and loads of graphics with Ultimo Guerrero wearing his mask when he lost it 10 years ago. Apparently he didn't bring one with him to this taping, panicked when he realised they'd been promoting him with the mask on and they had one made on the spot within an hour. To be fair given those circumstances it could have looked even worse, but it clearly did not fit properly and was giving him a ton of grief throughout the match. He is also 52 years and unfortunately was moving like it. It's a real shame, I remember getting hold of some CMLL in the early 2000s purely because of how much the sickos of the time were gushing about the him and Rey Bucanero being the best tag team on the planet. Wrestling Observer's tag team of the decade for 2000-2009 no less. I even have an Ultimo Guerrero mask from Highspots. Different time/different circumstances this would have been great, instead it was just a bit sad. 

Dante Martin did his best with a promo and I love that they're telling the story of it being his first ladder match since the horror injury, but he is just not a good promo. Lio Rush also sounded very wooden. I'd rather they tried to add some story to this match than not though. 

God I fucking hate the Iron Savages, and I especially hate the third guy who does the shit promos. Just the worst. I did appreciate Christian spending the match on commentary and popping in at the end to take all the glory. Nick Wayne is a right little prick, he's got good at that.

Women's tag match was a huge relief after a very ropey first hour. Mariah and Toni are guaranteed gold together at this point and never fail to get the crowd on board. Will be genuinely sad when they break up. Toni Storm has landed on the sweet spot between the wonderful silly shenanigans and great action in her matches of late. She is one of the best in the business right now, such a complete act. 

Happy to see the ROH women's undercard crew on the main shows again, particularly Lady Frost of course. She looked great here once again, that Frostbite corkscrew moonsault is just beautiful. I do wonder why she isn't signed. She's not a very good promo but there are plenty of worse ones on this roster so I don't believe that'd be the sole reason. I know she got out of her Impact contract and declined to sign for CMLL when they wanted her full time, so wonder if she is content to freelance on her own terms. AEW contracts still seem to offer a lot of freedom in that regard though. I dunno, I think she's good and it's a bit of a shame she's only ever enhancement talent on the main AEW shows. 

Serena Deeb with a babyface promo addressing her losses. I feel like Emperor Palpatine at this point. Embrace your ANGER Serena, join the daaark siiide. I hope she loses again in the match next week and then fully loses her shit and destroys them after the match. 

Nice violent squash from HOB. Promos were stupid though. "Revenge is never a straight line, we feel nothing". If you feel nothing then why do you want revenge? "What a human question" is the most teenage edgelord shit I've ever heard. Can they just look cool and beat people up please. Please can they just do that? 

Hechicero vs Daddy Magic... sigh. I love Daddy Magic to death. One of my favourite performers and personalities on this roster. Same goes for Dalton Castle. HOWEVER, the sicko in me is undeniably sad that we've had two appearances by Hechicero on Collision lately and they've both been 3 minute matches where he barely got to do any of the cool shit he does. We had a 15 minute Jericho match and an Iron Savages appearance on this show, but we only have 3 minutes for Hechicero. 

Jeff Jarrett almost making me cry out of nowhere, absolutely incredible. Tony didn't put comedy heel Jeff in the first Continental Classic instead of Jay Lethal and that was a huge mistake, but if we get the Last Outlaw's Last Ride in Continental Classic 2 I might forgive him. 

Brian Cage vs Ospreay was pretty good, though I don't think a Brian Cage singles match ever needs to be 17 minutes long. He was a good base for Ospreay here and they both did cool stuff, but it wasn't as good as either the Fenix or O'Reilly matches for me and didn't manage to save this underwhelming episode for me. 

 

Collision 29/06/24

Excalibur and Nigel on Collision. Boo. I love Excalibur and Taz, I love Nigel and Uncle Tony. This is not right. 

Good opening sprint from OC/Ishii and Haste/Eagles. OC and Robbie Eagles in particular worked very well together. 

Hangman vignette was bloody brilliant. 

Oh good it's The Learning Tree. 

Vaqeur/Lady Frost was a solid back and forth affair. Vaquer's offense looks vicious, particularly the face wash boots in the corner. Crowd was flat though. I'm a fan of Frost but she always loses and has no character or direction. Vaqeur and Mone's build has been video packages and an interaction in Mexico, and neither had been presented as babyface or heel in the rivalry. Post-match effectively cleared that bit up at least. Vaqeur is the baddie. Got it. 

Lucha Bros teaming with Mistico is very cool. 

Always happy to see Riho back, she always gets a great pop too. Surely this is the perfect time to finally go all in on this Deeb heel turn? It was Deeb or Nothing against Storm, she lost and the people cheered. She said she was gonna bounce back but then lost to Willow and the people cheered. She then beats a jobber, gives her rah-rah I won't give up speech, then Riho returns to challenge her to a bigger cheer than anything Deeb said in the promo. Riho to beat her and Deeb to stretch the hell out of her after the match and take her out. As Deeb said herself, they can't keep her in this purgatory. 

Oh it's The Learning Tree AGAIN will you just fu... wait, wait it's Jeff Cobb murdering everyone, oh my god it's Jeff Cobb squaring up to Joe. God DAMN it AEW will you stop putting everyone I love in the orbit of Jericho. It is not fair at all. Hook/Joe/Shibata AND Jeff Cobb now. Now I have to watch the Jericho match at Forbidden Door. Fuck you. 

OC/ZSJ backstage bit was good stuff. Love OC having a shorter fuse and being easier to wind up after all the backstabbing he's endured, and he has the perfect wind up merchant of an opponent for Forbidden Door. Really looking forward to that match. 

Hechicero tormenting a jobber in all sorts of ways was amusing enough, but again I'm saddened we've had numerous Hechicero outings ahead of the MJF match but nothing substantial. Will just have to hunt down that Zack Sabre Jr match from CMLL to get my fix I guess. 

Best bit of the Cage/BCG bit was Christian suggesting he would wear all 9 title belts himself if they win the Trios belts. 

Quality little big man/little man match from Buffalo lads Garcia and Butcher, elevated by the crowd backing Danny all the way. Butcher made for a great monster opponent, and of course Daddy Magic cheerleading on commentary is always a delight. 

I don't love RUSH associating with the Callis family. It's an upgrade from Vance and Dralistico but I don't think he needs to be in any teams or factions at all. If it gets him any sort of featured role though I guess I'll take it. 

Purazzo/Shida was OK but the crowd was very flat for it. Glad they went with the post-match attack as they need to further cement Purazzo as a heel I think. 

Toni Storm doing The New Colossus was unexpected and yet completely made sense for her. Tremendous. 

Six man tag was loads of fun, really enjoyed it. Lio Rush/Takeshita bits were brilliant, Takeshita catching Dante out of his signature dodge with the blue thunder bomb was brilliant, Mark Briscoe was of course brilliant. However, highlight of the match was Jack Perry only being there to be a right little shit for the duration.

Closing segment was outstanding. Red hot promo from Ospreay and that hidden blade was INCREDIBLE. Flawlessly shot as well. Not something AEW always gets right but man it looked devastating. What a great build it's been for this title match. 

Best Collision in a few weeks that, and again excellent go home segments for the main matches at Forbidden Door. 

Edited July 2 by JLM

[The Gaffer]

MJF's promo sort of just brought me right back to the end of his previous heel run, where I was groaning inward every other week at his endless variations on fans mothers being promiscuous. Now admittedly I was a little tired of his meta "I'm a good guy who knows he's a bad guy, but it's a character struggle I'm having!" thing as well, but I definitely thought there was more mileage in him being just a straightforward pop merchant since he came back. He was getting really great reactions, and there's no shortage of heels in AEW he could have gotten fire against.

Him and Osprey doesn't do anything for me on paper but hopefully some good comes of it. It almost feels like their roles should be reversed, but then a lot of the face/heel dynamic right now reminds me of one of those odd post-boom periods where WWE would put stars in positions where reactions went against your natural instincts. It can be interesting to see for a change and a lot of it is injury return/debut based but I'd say Swerve, Bucks, Britt, Hanger and Osprey off the top of my head are not on their 'default' setting, and that's a lot of the TV time. 

Loved the last few minutes of Hanger and White, though. That's throwback main event interference booking done right. Jarrett absolutely not looking out of place on the periphery of the main event picture is still chicken soup for the soul, and Christian rolling out of the ring and just affecting this weird corpse pose was fantastic.

Sadly the end of another week of your top guy and best possible chance of a breakout star being shrouded in relative anonymity. 

 

Edited July 7 by The Gaffer

[Supremo]

Not talking about the miraculous resurrection of the late, great Marko Stunt is one thing. But this? Nobody discussing this? For shame.

Unbelievable. He’s absolutely lost it. Has this motherfucker blinked once since coming back?

Not enough people talk about what a genuinely great actor Hangman is. Same with his in-ring work. There’s this weird sense of taking him for granted. He’s fucking amazing at absolutely everything. Whoppers like Seth Rollins calling themselves, “revolutionary,” whereas Hangman Adam Page actually is revolutionary. He completely changed the game with his babyface work, and now he’s doing it again with his heel work. This is tippy-top stuff. On a completely different level. Medium-re-defining work. Yet again.

He gave them EVERYTHING! And they CHOSE HIM!

Amazing.

After what’s felt like decades of things being immediately brushed under the carpet. Guys being thrown off bridges, set on fire, cinder blocks smashed over their heads, and then by the following month it’s at best forgotten about as they move on to the next feud and at worst completely undermined when the rivals end up becoming best mates or tag partners. Not Hangman Adam Page. He isn’t forgetting or forgiving anything. This isn’t a daft, throwaway pro-wrestling storyline. This has consumed him for nearly a year.

He broke INTO HIS HOUSE! He THREATENED HIS FAMILY!

CM Punk can steal all the Bret Hart spots he wants. Nobody is doing Bret Hart better than Hangman Adam Page right now. That 1997 righteous heel schtick, on fucking steroids.

I’ve dragged my feet buying a Wembley ticket. The buzz just isn’t there like it was last year. If Hangman Adam Page wins this tournament on Wednesday then I’m buying that ticket Thursday morning. I’m not missing this. This is their best storyline, on their biggest show, with two of their absolute best guys. I mean, fucking hell. Listening to him there? It has to be Barbed Wire Exploding Deathmatch! Unless they create their own version of Hell in a Cell or something!

He gave them EVERY DAMN THING!

Can’t get over it. In-fucking-credible.

[Olly1984]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Not talking about the miraculous resurrection of the late, great Marko Stunt is one thing. But this? Nobody discussing this? For shame.

Unbelievable. He’s absolutely lost it. Has this motherfucker blinked once since coming back?

Not enough people talk about what a genuinely great actor Hangman is. Same with his in-ring work. There’s this weird sense of taking him for granted. He’s fucking amazing at absolutely everything. Whoppers like Seth Rollins calling themselves, “revolutionary,” whereas Hangman Adam Page actually is revolutionary. He completely changed the game with his babyface work, and now he’s doing it again with his heel work. This is tippy-top stuff. On a completely different level. Medium-re-defining work. Yet again.

He gave them EVERYTHING! And they CHOSE HIM!

Amazing.

After what’s felt like decades of things being immediately brushed under the carpet. Guys being thrown off bridges, set on fire, cinder blocks smashed over their heads, and then by the following month it’s at best forgotten about as they move on to the next feud and at worst completely undermined when the rivals end up becoming best mates or tag partners. Not Hangman Adam Page. He isn’t forgetting or forgiving anything. This isn’t a daft, throwaway pro-wrestling storyline. This has consumed him for nearly a year.

He broke INTO HIS HOUSE! He THREATENED HIS FAMILY!

CM Punk can steal all the Bret Hart spots he wants. Nobody is doing Bret Hart better than Hangman Adam Page right now. That 1997 righteous heel schtick, on fucking steroids.

I’ve dragged my feet buying a Wembley ticket. The buzz just isn’t there like it was last year. If Hangman Adam Page wins this tournament on Wednesday then I’m buying that ticket Thursday morning. I’m not missing this. This is their best storyline, on their biggest show, with two of their absolute best guys. I mean, fucking hell. Listening to him there? It has to be Barbed Wire Exploding Deathmatch! Unless they create their own version of Hell in a Cell or something!

He gave them EVERY DAMN THING!

Can’t get over it. In-fucking-credible.

I'm doing the exact same thing ticket wise if Hanger wins as well mate, absolutely captivating promo, totally justified, hate fueled vitriol. He's got to win and I know Danielson is amazing but Page DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK!! That's how to sell tickets. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

Hangman has to win after that. Incredible. Dynamite is the first time since he’s been back that he and Swerve will be in the same building, too…

Edited July 9 by HarmonicGenerator

[The Gaffer]

Superb. It's poignant - considering he looks more or less like the same human being, with only a few years in between - comparing the Hangman of that video to the one goofing around with the Elite in their YouTube skits. 

I hope he kicks Bryan's leg out from under hie leg! 

Edited July 9 by The Gaffer

[Lorne Malvo]

That Hangman/Jay White match was tremendous.

I've got a bit of a confession to make. I've always liked Hangman, but I've never really loved him. Even during the excellent Omega/Hangman feud, he probably never cracked my top 5 of AEW wrestlers. But I think he has been phenomenal this past week. He's playing this role so well. As much as I want to see Danielson challenge for the title at Wembley, it shouldn't come at the expense of this Hangman character.

I hope they're doing a long-term 'Orange Cassidy learns to love again with the help of Kyle and Mark Briscoe' story but can easily see them ditching that for 'Kyle joins the Kingdom'.

Kip Sabian was unrecognisable and not in a good way. I genuinely thought the Patriarchy had beaten up a crew member until Schiavone said it was Kip.

[Snitsky's back acne]

Fair fucks. I'm not a big follower of AEW but Jeff Jarrett's Owen promo and this has me engaged.

I love how Hangman never said Swerve's name. Plus, 'this is all I have'. Awesome. I don't know the full backstory but he explained the most important bits and he seemed genuinely pained when he said 'They chose you!'. I get it. One promo. I understand. I'm invested. 

Top tier pro wrestling. 

[Chris B]

25 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Fair fucks. I'm not a big follower of AEW but Jeff Jarrett's Owen promo and this has me engaged.

I love how Hangman never said Swerve's name. Plus, 'this is all I have'. Awesome. I don't know the full backstory but he explained the most important bits and he seemed genuinely pained when he said 'They chose you!'. I get it. One promo. I understand. I'm invested. 

Top tier pro wrestling. 

The backstory is fucking tremendous, and involves one of the greatest matches of the last decade. The set up to this was the most brutal blood feud AEW has seen, which involved Hangman stapling his child's drawings to Swerve's face, drinking his blood and spitting it out.

 

[JLM]

Collision 

06/07/24

MJF promo got there in the end. Was a bit all over the place, but once he got onto his motivation it hit the notes it needed to. He lost the title and the fans moved on to their favourite new toys while he sat on the shelf, and he took that personally. Fairly standard heel motivation and I'm up for that match at All In. Solid bit of shithousery with the fake entrance music pop too, it's a classic. Appreciated dropping the singalong catchphrase at the end as well. Hate it when heels still let the crowd do that sort of thing. I look forward to the promo battles between these two, Ospreay has shown himself to be fantastic with a live mic and had great counter points when he was sparring with Swerve. 

Briscoe promo once again a delight. If he started a religion I'd be tempted to get on board. I love The Conglomeration. Three good dudes sticking together, their segments make me smile every time.  OC's "I don't care" blending seamlessly into Where is My Mind was a brilliant transition. Poor OC man. As ever though, The Iron Savages and that shouting bellend can do one. Only The Conglomeration could make me sit through their match. I'm glad I did in the end. Briscoe was on fire and I loved OC being totally checked out for 90% of the match, only for his hot tag at the end to wipe out the other team in short order. Pissed off Orange Cassidy being his most dangerous form is a great extra wrinkle to his character. 

Amazing promo from Hangman. The online one was even better but this was sensational as well. Again he's absolutely right in everything he says. He knows The Bucks are trying to use him, it's secondary to righting that one wrong though. It was wrong, too. The villain won and then everyone celebrated him? It is fucked up. He's so correct, but the need for vengeance has completely consumed him. Ah it's so good. I love Lexy Nair, a professional interviewer but also a human being who is as visibly unsettled by wrestler behaviour as any normal person would be. She is the perfect person to interview a wrestler who is spiraling out of control, she proved it with Dalton and she showed it again here. Of *course* she would remind Hangman that he's never beaten Jay White and then immediately regret saying it. 

Trish adora/Toni Storm was good fun. Loved Toni spending the commercial break on the house mic demanding a standing ovation. Mariah threatening to knock out The Infantry also made me smile. Built to a good closing stretch too after starting very silly. Again, Toni is finding a great balance between the inherent silliness of the act and delivering quality matches, managing to do both pretty seamlessly at this point. 

Good vignette for Willow/Mariah. I liked that they talked about Mariah main eventing in the UK, and how she wants to win the tournament for Toni for believing in her, but avoided mentioning that if she wins it'll be Toni she's fighting. 

Another quality promo from Christian. Good points about the BCG trios title run being underwhelming and Jay White not being where he should be on the card. "The genetic waste of Billy Gunn" was a brutal line too. I forgot Kip Sabian was still employed. Three matches for AEW this year and I had to look that up on Cagematch. You can't reach out to Christian and offer up the deceased father angle, he has to choose you. Poor strategy from Kip. 

Bringing Marko Stunt was a bloody brilliant move, and boy oh boy can he still take those bumps. Good lord the lawn dart into the corner made me wince. Fantastic bit of business and wonderful extra heat for Perry. 

Malakai Black read out some super cool dark shit he doodled on his pencil case. Revenge is a shadow hiding in the dark, waiting to be put back into the light. OK pal. 

Beast Mortos vs Claudio. this was good because Claudio matches always are and Mortos is excellent. However, it is frustrating seeing Mortos booked against a significantly larger and stronger opponent. He is so, so good against smaller flippy guys and AEW has plenty of them. It's not as preposterous as when they booked him against Nick Comoroto on ROH, but it's still not what I want to see him doing He still got to show off a lot of the cool stuff he can do, but pleeease can we see him in his element.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

 

 

Seen Mustafa Ali and a returning/repackaged Sammy Guevara touted. Many expect Ricochet to sign as well of course. Depends if the portal jumping guy or indeed the masked guy in the clip are actually the debuting wrestler or not I guess. I do like a mystery vignette. 

Riho/Lady Frost was a bit disappointing. Liked this one on paper but there were some sloppy/rough looking moments in between some of the cool high spots I expected. The dive to the floor looked especially rough for Riho. 

STP/Top Flight remains a thoroughly underwhelming feud. 

One extra touch I love about this Hangman run through the Owen is him facing other somewhat cowboy-themed wrestlers back to back in the bracket. Gotta take out the Last Outlaw and the local gang of bandits on your path to vengeance. Tremendous main event. Jay White's whole thing is that he's very hard to kill, so a perfect opponent for Hangman on this warpath. Great, fiery scrap, with Jay White embracing the carnage as it went on leading to a brilliantly heated closing stretch. Loved Double J's interference so much, but somehow Christian coffin dropping himself out of sight was even better. 
 

Again one of the stronger episodes of Collision in recent months. That throughline of hot and engaging storylines bleeding into both shows benefits it so much. I have a high tolerance for "for the sickos" matches but there's no reason why Collision can't have those AND significant plot developments.. Speaking of matches for the sickos, Takeshita vs Tommy Billington next week should be a cracker! 

Edited July 11 by JLM

[Doog]

Just when I'm proper into all aspects of AEW (even Jericho) them boring bastards FTR turn back up. Eurgh.

Hopefully they don't end up in Blood and Guts and ruin that match. Was hoping they'd be gone much longer.

[JLM]

Collision 13/07/24

Another strong showing from Tommy Billington. Facing a specimen like Takeshita did highlight just how small he is, but he has that good underdog babyface fire. He wouldn't be The Dynamite Kid if he wasn't undersized and furious about it. I feel like every Takeshita Blue Thunder bomb is the best one he's ever hit, but the one in this match has to be in the top 5. Don Callis saying he's seen Takeshita put people away with it was a lie though. One detail I absolutely loved in the post-match was Takeshita sincerely wanting Billington to join and clearly disapproving when Callis slapped the lad. Takeshita has been led astray, but Billington earned his respect and he genuinely did want him on the team. Once Tommy tried to attack Callis he had to jump in, but we still got to see Takeshita is a good guy underneath it all. FTR vs Takeshita/Fletcher sounds good to me. 

The Bang Bang Gang squash was highlighted by Juice's amazing dance around the pinfall, skipping over the ref to complete his circle. The trios title freebird rule saga has been quite a mess. Just say it's fine for any of them to defend the belts, nobody would mind. House of Black were allowed to make up their own set of rules for their championship matches but noooo we can't have substitutes. Gunns could also have offered to defend the titles vs Patriarchy without Juice in a handicap match rather than be stripped. Very convoluted stuff this. 

Malakai Black and Brody King teasing... something... for Wembley.  Patriarchy win the trios titles and HOB with a returning Matthews challenge them at Wembley? I don't love Christian and the boys as Trios champions idea honestly. Christian as a singles guy with the other two as lackeys works better for me. 

Dalton and The Outrunners was an amusing combination. Dalton's rant about seeing 27 horses was excellent. Lovely to see him outside of ROH purgatory somewhat regularly these days. Good match with Roddy here. Strong is one of the most dependable wrestlers in the world right now and Dalton can stillt turn it on when needed. I thought the editing on the pinfall looked very fishy though. Turns out Dalton got legit knocked out by that flying knee. He was meant to kick out and didn't, and the referee ended up counting, stopping, then counting again. It did look like the "3" was spliced in from elsewhere. Hope he's alright, poor guy has no luck with injuries. 

Utterly chaotic promo from Mark Briscoe, what a guy. Briscoe vs Roddy at Death before Dishonour will be bloody brilliant. 

Hologram next week? Soo most sites reporting that it's a possible new gimmick for the former Aramis. The second vignette the outfit looks a bit naff I must say. One suggestion I quite liked was that it's all a swerve, and it's not about Hologram's debut but someone else debuting or returning and kicking his arse. NXT did it with Dan Matha. Ran vignettes to hype him up, then on his debut Samoa Joe ran in and smacked the shit out of him. It was awesome. 

Good promo from Stokeley. Stat doing live interpretive dance based on what he's saying is exactly the sort of thing she would do. I would hate it if anyone else did it. 

Nyla Rose sure did kill that jobber. Was relieved to see her get a promo a bit later in the show. Massively underutilised personality in AEW, she is hilarious and absolutely brimming with charisma, yet so rarely gets to talk. In this promo she refused to call Twitter "X" *and* she threw in "I ain't no dentist but I do be knocking people's teeth out". No notes, let Nyla talk more often please. 

Top Flight vs Moriarty was a perfectly fine tag team match. Dante and Moriarty work well together, Dante in general looked excellent in this match too. They built up Top Flight's hot tags effectively, Ogogo didn't do anything too fancy but was competent throughout. However, it was far too long for me given my lack of interest in this never ending feud. 

Purazzo vs Rosa in a lumberjack sounds fun to me. Purazzo is a great shit talker, she sounded great here. 

Skye Blue with the Jacoby Watts 'fit this week. Good match with Harley Cameron here. As ever, I have a lot of time for the Harley/Saraya double act. Interested to see where this mini-reset for Skye Blue goes. Leaning slightly less heelish with the new look to match, but still needs some kind of feud or direction.

Good main event, though Nigel and Roddy on commentary were probably the highlight, especially Nigel slaying himself with the line about Schiavone's beard coming as a set with his nose and glasses. O'Reilly's hot tag late on was excellent, lots of fun shenanigans at the end. Loving the continued escalation of OC being pushed too far. Definitely one of the most unhinged things we've seen him do. The look on his face after he whacked Trent was an outstanding visual, easily the most memorable moment of the episode. 

Just an "OK" episode of Collision this week.