AEW Saturday Collision

[BomberPat]

So are they just going to announce a fourth team in Cardiff, or will be there a match to determine it? I could see it being an AEW team - maybe Top Flight, or some luchadores to fill the spot that would have gone to the Lucha Bros; maybe Komander and Hologram and somebody, maybe some CMLL talent, given Neon and maybe others might already be in the country for CMLL - but having to win a match to qualify, and their opponents could be Mark Andrews, Flash Morgan Webster and somebody else, as a way to crowbar some Welsh talent on to the show but not give up a spot at Wembley to them.

[Infinity Land]

8 hours ago, Supremo said:

Surprise team will probably be Death Triangle. All with new, ridiculously expensive-looking gear after Tony offered them millions to stay.

Joker get up. Injury angle with return as Penta Oscuro. Another injury angle this time returning through the Codyvator with Fenix under the new trademarked names and looks

[HarmonicGenerator]

9 hours ago, Supremo said:

Surprise team will probably be Death Triangle. All with new, ridiculously expensive-looking gear after Tony offered them millions to stay.

If it gets PAC on the show then I’m for it. They did show the clip of him from a while ago disrupting the BBG during a title match this week. Does Fenix still have visa issues?

[JLM]

Collision 17/08/24

Definitely feared the worst for Britt Baker/Harley Cameron but it was perfectly fine. As entertaining as I find Harley, I always expect her to be worse in-ring than she actually is. For two years in with very few matches under her belt she's not bad at all, and already looks more assured and less awkward than Anna Jay does after five years. Quality beatdown from Kamille, snapping the kendo stick was cool and that pump kick she does looks brutal. 

Sammy and Dustin vs The Kingdom is, on paper, not a match that appeals to me at all. For this crowd though, the heat was unreal and it made this one a blast to watch. Some of the pops for the near falls and the hot tags you wouldn't believe it was only 1000 people in there, was lovely to see how much they wanted this. It also helped that the result wasn't assured as The Kingdom have had these titles for AGES and always seem to scam their way into keeping them. Great use of all the bells and whistles towards the end too to give it more of an epic feel without Dustin having to do too much more beyond his hot tag. Curious to see where they go with this now. Would love it if Dustin eventually gets pinned to cost them the tag titles, Sammy is pissed, so he then interferes and costs Dustin the trios titles as well. Seems like something the little bastard would do. 

Swerve/Danielson package with all the talking heads predicting the outcome was great stuff. It's all just the icing on top of this build now, but every little touch like this still contributes to make it feel massive. I am positively frothing with excitement and also terrified of Danielson losing. 

Tommy Billington on Dynamite in Cardiff sounds grand. Against Jericho much less so. From Dax and Takeshita to this. Ugh. 

Hologram/Angelico was another fun exhibition against yet another perfectly suited opponent. Particularly enjoyed the ending sequence with Hologram having to out-llave the master.

Very cool that they could use ROH Misawa footage for the Tiger Driver 91 video. Honestly not that sold on the "can he hit the move" story though. I get what they're going for but it hasn't clicked for me. 

Jack Perry's jobber hailing from "DallasSingles.com" was tremendous. Loved that. 

Statlander continues to be the most endearing heel ever. Luckily she's feuding with the nicest person on Earth, so the bar to be the bad guy against her is extremely low. Glad Stokeley has found this role in AEW, this pairing is a lot of fun. 

Thoroughly entertaining match from Claudio and Lio Rush. I've enjoyed all of Rush's work on this latest AEW stint. 

Effortlessly brilliant promo from Kingston. Put the whole thing in the video package before Swerve/Danielson. I hope they've earmarked 30 minutes of the show for the pre-match video, it should be an all-timer. 

Mariah May jumping the jobber before the bell was great. Storm Zero looked bloody terrifying though, hope she was OK. Toni video was fantastic. "You will forever regret the day you met the woman who loved you!" Incredible line. Love that the vignette was good enough to prompt a Toni chant even though she wasn't there. 

Caster doing a much more serious sounding rap in the style of an actual battle rap verse was a huge improvement, as was Bowens uncharacteristically saying very little. Set exactly the right tone for a high stakes main event match, liked this a lot. The match was excellent, and normally an FTR 30 minute Collision main event would be up my street. However, I felt certain we wouldn't get a finish so it was difficult to get invested in it. Nigel singing "The Clams, The Clams they are a-calling" re: Danielson's career ending made me laugh out loud though. Can't believe he didn't save that one for Wembley. 

All up to date just in time for the Cardiff tapings tomorrow! Very much looking forward to it, hope I'm not sat next to dickheads! 

[JLM]

Very minor Collision spoiler not pertinent to All In: 

Spoiler

For Hook vs Big Bill, what started as sort of joking support for Big Bill eventually turned into insane pro-Bill heat for the duration of the match. The more he tried to turn the crowd against him, the louder the support became. All of Hook’s offense booed, “we want Bill” chants after he’d gone. Wonder if they’ll tweak the audio when it airs, I honestly felt a little bad for Hook. 
 

Absolutely thunderous crowd support for Double J too, which was just lovely. 

 

Edited August 21 by JLM

[Hannibal Scorch]

23 hours ago, JLM said:

Very minor Collision spoiler not pertinent to All In: 

  Reveal hidden contents

For Hook vs Big Bill, what started as sort of joking support for Big Bill eventually turned into insane pro-Bill heat for the duration of the match. The more he tried to turn the crowd against him, the louder the support became. All of Hook’s offense booed, “we want Bill” chants after he’d gone. Wonder if they’ll tweak the audio when it airs, I honestly felt a little bad for Hook. 
 

Absolutely thunderous crowd support for Double J too, which was just lovely. 

 

On a 4 hour record the fact that those things happened to the crowd then, show how great  the UK, hell European crowds in general are compared to the dull US ones. It was beautiful!

Also having gone to Smackdown last year and hating it, I thought AEWs production of Dynamite and Collision was more smooth and dragged less for not stopping for commercials. Considering how new they still are in comparison, I was pleasantly surprised.

[JLM]

Collision 24/08/24

SPOILERS. BIG SPOILY SPOILERS. IT HASN'T AIRED YET. I'M REVIEWING IT BEFORE IT'S ON TV. HOW CAN I DO THAT? IT'S JUST LIKE MY FAVOURITE MOVIE. I THINK YOU ALL KNOW WHAT IT IS. THAT'S RIGHT, 2003's STRAIGHT TO DVD SEQUEL, TIMECOP 2: THE BERLIN DECISION! 

Spoiler

Live notes:

Sooo this was one of those match-match-match episodes of Collision. I wouldn't watch one of those immediately after watching an episode of Dynamite and, even in the live setting with a brilliant lively crowd, the fatigue was still there for me. Arkady Aura  is still learning but was fine as a host (she has very fun rapport with Aubrey Edwards in particular), it was just tough putting on some of these matches immediately after the amazing high of the Dynamite closing segment. 

Conglomeration vs Roddy/Kingdom was a very entertaining six man tag. Very wise to open with this to stop the crowd from crashing. Mark Briscoe on the apron is amazing to watch. He takes every bump and cheers every single bit of offense his team lands. He took a very nasty bump doing his chair assisted dive to the outside but was otherwise in excellent form and I'm so glad I got to see him perform live and up close. That goes for the whole Conglomeration team as well, they're great. 

Willow vs Harley Cameron was fine. Again, above all else it was great to see Willow perform live and to hear the great pop she got for her entrance. The crowd did flag a little bit during the match itself. 

Shibata vs Jay Lethal was a match too far at this stage of the evening. I was very happy when Shibata came out as I didn't think I'd get to see him. He got a decent response, but the enthusiasm in the building collapsed when Jay Lethal came out. Sammy and Dustin accompanied Shibata because they're all pals with the Von Erichs and are Iron Claw friends or something. Lethal had Sonjay and Satnam. I know "Satnam is really fucking tall" is not a groundbreaking observation, but god damn when he's only a few feet away from you it is jawdropping how large the man is. Anyway, yeah, the crowd did not care about this match AT ALL. So they went round all the seconds doing the "give us a wave" song. This ended up being quite fun. Satnam asked Sonjay for permission to do the wave and eventually did it to a big pop. Sonjay pretended he was hesitant but also gave us a wave. Sammy and Dustin no-sold it, Dustin slapping the mat and trying to force people to engage with the match again like a true pro. 

Statlander/Stokeley vs Kid Lykos II and Nina Samuels. I was very disappointed when Statlander and Stokeley didn't get involved in the Willow match as I thought I'd been denied the chance to see my beloved Statlander in person. Very happy to see her even in a very short squash. Loved that they had her destroy both of the opponents. Great reception for Nina Samuels in particular, even though she had to enter the ring silently under cover of darkness. Nina's great, and has to be one of the hardest grafters on the UK scene. She seems to be booked somewhere every night for every promotion on Earth these days. 

Big Bill vs Hook. As I mentioned previously, this was the Big Bill love-in. They actually wrestled a pretty good big man/little man match, building up to Hook landing the massive suplex on the giant. This crowd was 200% in on Bill though and there was nothing he could do to change it. It was very entertaining, also nice that right at the end when Hook was on the ramp and posed, he *did* get a decent cheer from the audience to send him off. It wasn't Hook hate, he was just in Big Bill Country for the evening. 

Ariya Daivari/Mark Sterling met with "He's not Bill!" chants was funny stuff. Was preparing for a whole match of "We want Bill!" and "You're not Bill!" chants, until "My World" hit and the place became unglued for Double J. Easily the highlight of Collision for me. Double J songs to the tune of Boney M, Give it Up, all the classics. Jarrett wrestling as the purest blue eyed babyface, cupping the ear like Hogan, milking every second of it. Great pop for the 

strut as well. I know he's a crafty old carny, but he seemed sincerely chuffed with the reception he got after the match. I hope he was, he deserves it. 

The main event was a real rollercoaster of emotions. I was still holding out a faint hope for Death Triangle, so was mildly disappointed when Claudio and Yuta came out. Then, though, our block started buzzing at the possibility of Mox and people were looking all over the place to see where he'd come from, then it was Pac. I like Pac a lot, I am very glad he's on the Wembley card, but this makeshift trios team was never quite going to live up to everyone's anticipation/speculation.

I found it funny that Top Flight have immediately ditched the god awful pilot outfits, and even funnier that Shitarse Andretti wasn't on the team. Imagine how awkward the group chat must have been. What was brilliant about this match, though, was the young lad sat next to me. He SQUEALED when Top Flight's music hit, and his favourite wrestler in the whole world is Darius Martin! His sister didn't know Top Flight/Lio Rush, he was explaining who they are, and he ended with "the one in the ring now is Darius, THE BEST ONE". He was also the lone voice for a "Let's go Darius" chant, bless his little heart. I suddenly felt very guilty for all of the fast forward heat I'd been throwing at Top Flight lately, even though this kid had no idea I felt like I'd wronged him by disrespecting his heroes. The match was pretty good, Lio Rush looked excellent, obviously the result was never in doubt and it's always spectacular to see the Black Arrow. 

The crowd definitely saved parts of this. The Double J match was delightful. Four hour tapings are long.

 

[Lorne Malvo]

Spoiler

Conglomeration Vs Undisputed Kingdom was match of the night for me, across both shows. Such a fun match.

The rest of Collision was fine, but JLM is right about Jay Lethal killing the crowd.

Pacs inclusion was a nice moment but having no explanation for him teaming up with Claudio (the guy who storyline-injured him during their ROH title feud last year) was standard Tony Khan 2024 booking. 

 

[LaGoosh]

Goddamn Kyle Fletcher vs Ishii was great. On paper seemed like a nothing match but yeah, absolutely worth checking out.

[JLM]

Collision 31/08/24

Hologram/O'Reilly/OC vs Mortos/Johnny TV/Moriarty was a delightful opener. Some ridiculously convoluted multiman stuff with Hologram but they somehow managed to just about land it all. Cool to see how over he is with this crowd outside of the Arlington residency and this was another well put together showcase for him. My favourite bit of this match was the Mortos/O'Reilly exchange where they smacked the hell out of each other though. Yet another to add to the long list of Mortos singles matches I want to see. 

BBG vs Premier Athletes was a very routine match on paper. Obvious winners, not especially exciting opponents. However, the Gunns' charisma and talent for brilliant multiman sprints, this amazingly lively crowd and the way Juice in particular feeds off a hot audience made this a joy to watch. Seriously, Juice was just radiating manic energy here, it was magnificent. Also Colten Gunn hit the best standing dropkick I've seen from him yet, and that's a pretty high bar.

I actually watched Mercedes Mone vs Momo Watanabe from Capital Collision. It main evented the show, went 19 minutes and has been very highly praised. I was a bit underwhelmed after reading all the praise for it. Was a novelty to see Mone wrestling as the pure babyface and actually getting "CEO!" chants from real audience members. When your opponent is known as The Black Peach, is in a stable called HATE, dresses like evil incarnate and hits you with a baseball bat whenever she gets a a chance, it's hard to out-heel her. It had a hot closing stretch, some very nice reversals and counter sequences and it was the best I've ever seen the Mone Maker look as Watanabe took a really snappy looking bump from it. However, it also had a bunch of Mone's slow-mo lucha libre at the start, definitely felt like a long 19 minutes overall and had some rough looking moments of hesitation where they weren't on the same page. Wasn't as good as her matches with Willow or Kairi for me, but obviously leaps and bounds ahead of the All In match. 

FTR/Kingdom was fine. Taven and Bennett are perfectly capable wrestlers and a perfectly capable tag team but my eyes glaze over during their matches. GYV attack and Gibson promo were good. Give me FTR vs GYV in a sweaty Collision main event for the sickos. Oh my yes. Also they didn't shout "GRIT YOUR TEETH!" this time. Maybe they realised they've been saying it too much. I hope so. 

Big fan of these video package/pre-tape promos they're doing for the participants of the main event. They did it on Rampage this week too and I hope they keep it up. 

Laughed out loud at the Lance Archer backstage beatdown, specifically at the guy who was already in the bin at the start of the scene. Excellent. Again though, would love to see this go somewhere for Archer.

Oh noooooo Lio Rush rocking the abysmal Top Flight pilot outfit this week. They're making him less cool by the week by association. Get out while you can Lio. Leila Grey is both a pilot AND an aircraft marshall. Feels like there's a conflict of interest there. I enjoy Lio Rush, I enjoy The Outrunners, but damn this was an ROH TV level match up if ever I've seen one. And putting Jacked Jameson in the match over Truth Magnum is a travesty. Putting him in any match or on my TV in any capacity is also a travesty. He is Mojo Rawley-esque in how much his presence makes me want to fast forward. Once again the live crowd elevated this, particularly Turbo Floyd deservedly being the most over babyface in the match. 

Deeb/Aminata promos were nothing special but, again, I appreciate them taking the time to build up the main event throughout the show. For shows like Rampage and Collision where they throw out an assortment of whacky matches I think it's important to have that bit of structure and a throughline to the main event. 

As LaGoosh says, Ishii vs Fletcher was a belter of a match and comfortably the highlight of the episode. 10 minutes of all out war, a near perfect TV match. Kyle Fletcher is always looking to go hell for leather in every match against every opponent, and if that's what you wanna do then Ishii is your man. One of Ishii's best performances on this AEW stay too, felt like he rose to the challenge of matching Fletcher's relentless pace and even busted out wild left field stuff like the big leaping top rope frankensteiner! Couldn't quite believe what I was seeing on that one. Cracking stuff, though the finish was bloody terrifying. Usually the tombstone and inverted tombstone from Fletcher look very safe as he's so much taller than most opponents, so their head is nowhere near the mat when he drops to his knees. For this one, Ishii's head was comfortably above the mat for the initial impact, but then he just dropped straight down onto his head when Fletcher let go. I haven't heard any reports that he was injured, and he is certainly a #NeckStrong individual, so presumably he got away with it, but bloody hell it made me wince. 

I bloody love Pac and think he should have promos on every episode. LOVE that Kyle called Briscoe to chat about teaming up with Ospreay before they went ahead with it. Good communication is the foundation of successful interpersonal relationships. First rate conglomerating, I approve. That six man on Dynamite will be outstanding. 

Komander and Buddy Matthews had fantastic chemistry together, the dynamic of high flyer vs powerful base/deadly striker made for a great pairing. Matthews' knees are the best in the business and were perfect for swatting Komander, and he was also a perfect base/bump machine to make all of Komander's stuff look amazing. I find that Matthews in a singles setting can sometimes fail to hold my attention but this was a blast. 

Main event was just OK. I'm a big fan of all four participants and I liked the main event having four fairly credible competitors in a match with some stakes to it, but it suffered from the common four-way match problem of being a bit messy and disjointed. The last few minutes it picked up a bit and they had the crowd with the closing stretch, but otherwise a bit disappointing for me. Also the Deebtox on Thunder Rosa was utterly terrifying. Looked like that Styles Clash on James Ellsworth where he instinctively tucked his head instead because landing flat on your face isn't a natural thing to do. Both of the commentators freaked the hell out as well. It was a near miss but a frightening one. 

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. The South Dakota crowd helped a lot by elevating some of the weaker on paper stuff, and there were two fantastic 10 minute TV matches back to back in the second hour that massively upped the overall quality of the show. 

 

[LaGoosh]

BCC/Pac vs the Elite, Takeshita vs Mortos, Mark Briscoe vs Lance Archer...Friday night Collision is looking very tasty!

[LaGoosh]

It never crossed my mind but I see it now. It's going to happen and it's going to be terrible. 

The Conglomeration are about to be pulled into the Jericho vortex.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

It never crossed my mind but I see it now. It's going to happen and it's going to be terrible. 

The Conglomeration are about to be pulled into the Jericho vortex.

Everything ends up in the Jericho Vortex eventually. It's like a black hole sucking all the light in, but in this case the dense mass at the centre is Jericho's weird tits. 

[Chili]

 

Go on lads! Didn't get the gimmick properly until I saw their brilliant appearance on Hey! (EW). If they don't cock it up I can see them getting more organically over like The Acclaimed did a few years back. They've even got Erica Leigh (don't know much about her) doing a Mad Lizzie bit with them. Hope they get highlighted a bit more, they're Predator elbow drop is delightful. Proper OSW boys for me these two youngsters.

[LaGoosh]

On 9/5/2024 at 11:44 AM, LaGoosh said:

BCC/Pac vs the Elite, Takeshita vs Mortos, Mark Briscoe vs Lance Archer...Friday night Collision is looking very tasty!

All 3 of these were fantastic and well worth watching.