Tonight on AEW Collision, in a blockbuster main event, the House Of Black put their AEW Trios Titles on the line against CMFTR. Diamante and Mercedes Martinez also team up to take on Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale, and The Acclaimed look to regain their momentum after the retirement of Billy Gunn as they compete in singles action. Lets get at it!
Max Caster’s rap in the pre show interviews sounds scarily like Eminem. All the promos are solid as expected.
GREAT Ricky Starks Promo
Really impassioned promo here from Starks which is well delivered. He’s basically proclaiming he’ll burn AEW down. He does kinda say a whole lot of nothing, but says it with passion and conviction. Just started to meander towards the end, but for the most part this did it’s job as an opening segment nicely
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.5 Stars
GOOD The Acclaimed vs Iron Savages
Glad to see a smaller team getting a rub here rather than an easy jobber team. This is a good but standard match that doesn’t do much beyond what you expect. It’s the usual formula of good guys vs bad guys that we’ve seen a thousand times, but does the job of getting both teams hotter than when they went in, and there were some impressive spots in amongst a mostly standard package
Result: The Acclaimed by Pinfall via Double Fameasser
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3 Stars
GOOD The Acclaimed Promo
Again this is standard stuff really, Caster announces they’re wrestling on dynamite next week and Bowens asks the fans to hold up their scissors for Billy. A functional continuation of this story
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
Decent backstage promo with Bullet Club Gold. The Gunn’s vs The Bucks is announced for Dynamite which should be fairly good fun
GOOD Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale vs Mercedes Martinez and Diamante
Mercedes and Diamante get zero reaction when they enter, as I wish this crowd would wake up a bit. Another good tag match, though the decision to put this straight after the last one is a strange one. I did like this more than the mens offering as it felt more lively and energised, with some very entertaining if not entirely clean big match spots. The crowd woke up towards the end of it but the first half was a slog because the crowd just weren’t that interested. The ending was also a little flat, but I suppose keeps some plates spinning. Getting a bit fed up with the roll up finish now in AEW. They use it on almost every show now
Result: Mercedes Martinez by Pinfall via Roll-Up
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
Toni Storm cuts another great backstage promo. I love this character. She threw a shoe at the interviewer, what more do you want!
SQUASH Samoa Joe vs Andrew Everett
Well he lasted longer than Serpentico did… Thanks for coming, Andrew.
Result: Samoa Joe by Submission via Koquina Clutch
GREAT Samoa Joe Promo
Another excellently delivered Joe promo which the crowd eat up. You do kinda lose the final line though because he whispers it. Kind of a copy paste from last week, just not quite with the bite of last weeks tornado of anger.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.75 Stars
AVERAGE Christian Cage Promo
Some good crowd heat early on from Cage but it all feels a bit easy and underbaked. It also doesn’t help that this feud is making me want to see Christian Cage vs Darby Allin rather than Luchasaurus vs Darby Allin, which I think is a problem revealing itself with this story. Anyway, Arn and Brock Anderson come out, which is nice as hometown boys, but people are more into Arn than Brock. Anyway, in a very staged and clumsy manner an impromptu title match is made. Started better than it ended, but to be honest this might have been one of Christian’s weaker AEW Promos.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 2.75 Stars
AVERAGE Luchasaurus vs Brock Anderson- TNT Championship
This was a bit of a waste of time. Luchasaurus boringly beats around Brock and nobody cares about Brock’s comebacks because they’re more into Cage and Arn on the outside. This did nothing for either guy really. The most interesting part of this is the post match where Darby attacks and challenges Cage for next week, which does alleviate my earlier criticism about who they’re building to and I retract that statement.
Result: Luchasaurus by Pinfall
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 2.5 Stars
GOOD Powerhouse Hobbs Promo
To be honest Hobbs doesn’t say a ton here, just saying he needs redemption and calls out the Redeemer for All Out. It’s such a flimsy reason to call someone out but this match is awesome. Unfortunately, QTV come out to spoil the fun, though it is short lived as Miro beats them up, only to get hit with a Spinebuster. Good enough segment from Hobbs, but the reason for the match is extremely silly which kinda makes the promo hard to get into for me.
David Sheldon WR Match Rating- 3 Stars
GREAT CMFTR vs House Of Black- AEW Trios Championship- Watch Match HERE
I have mixed thoughts on this match. Objectively this was a very good main event match, with some good spots, nice moments and very clean wrestling. I just wish the match didn’t go 30 minutes long, because so much of it was stretched far too much to fill that time. The first and third acts of the match were good, although the ending was really deflating given the camera didn’t pick half of it up. My issue was the match’s middle did drag, which hampered what had the potential to be a 4+ star dream match by the shows conclusion. I have a very similar feeling to last week’s main event. An objectively good, but overlong and stuffy match with a deflating ending. It was a very well done match, I just wish for a match of this magnitude it had been better
Result: Brody King via Pinfall
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.5 Stars
Overall…
This episode of AEW Collision was a dull affair, with a badly structured and mediocre show leading to a good but exceedingly dragged out main event. This show was far too densely populated with admittedly well delivered but ultimately meaningless promos, as The Acclaimed, Ricky Starks and Toni Storm, despite delivering their promos with conviction and charisma, all spin wheels. The opening two tag matches would both be classed as standard Rampage fare, the TNT Title segment was sloppy and the Hobbs/Miro story slight and undercooked. The main event had some excellent moments but for me was just far too long with a flat and predictable ending and a lot of unnecessary dead space, which isn’t befitting the match I feel these teams are capable of. Had the match trimmed 5-10 minutes from its running time or simply filled its time better I would’ve considered it a 4+ star match. Unfortunately to me it took far too long to get out of second gear and when it did merely teased a third act rather than fully delivered one, which for a match that runs over 25% of the show I must take into consideration. I also expected more of the North Carolina crowd, who felt noticeably absent this week compared to the electricity of last week. This show felt like it was mostly populated with segments that would be functional, even good, filler when surrounded with bigger and hotter angles, only with the bigger and hotter angles not present. This episode was sadly a bit of a chore to sit through, and easily Collisions weakest episode thus far.
Matches: 0.5/1 Stars
Show Structure: 0.25/1 Stars
Atmosphere: 0.5/1 Stars
Storytelling: 0.5/1 Stars
Production/Theme: 0.75/1 Stars
Overall Rating: 2.5/5 Stars
Photo Credit: All Elite Wrestling- August 12th 2023
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