The SmarK Rant for AEW Collision – 09.16.23
Live from Penn State, PA. Another darkly lit arena tonight.
Your hosts are Kevin Kelly & Nigel McGuinness
Ricky Starks & Big Bill v. Claudio Castagnoli & Bryan Danielson
Bill beats on Bryan in the corner to start and chokes him out, but Bryan dropkicks the knee and beats on it with kicks. Over to Claudio and he accepts a test of strength before slugging out of it. Bill hits him with a corner clothesline, but Claudio fires away with more forearms and brings in Bryan for a double-team. Starks slugs away on Danielson in the corner, but Bryan fires back with chops and follows with a top rope rana for two. Starks and Bill double-team him in the corner and work him over, and Bill boots Bryan to the floor for some abuse from Starks as there are teenage girls SHRIEKING behind the announcers. Back in the ring, Bill chokes him out in the corner and Starks follows with a ropewalk for two. Bryan backflips out of the corner and hits the knee to make a comeback to set up the hot tag to Claudio. He batters Bill with forearms in the corner and then hits a crazy series of 18 corner clotheslines and powers him up into a TKO for two. Bill escapes the Giant Swing and chokeslams Claudio for two, however, as the heels take over again. Starks comes in, but Claudio catches him with the Giant Swing for two. Claudio with a Sharpshooter, but Bill boots him in the head to break it, so Danielson dumps Bill with a missile dropkick and follows with a dive. Starks hits Claudio with a DDT for two off that. Claudio with Swiss Death for two and it’s back to Bryan for the kicks, but Starks rolls him up for two. Bryan reverses and tries the Lebell Lock, but Starks catapults him into a shot from Big Bill and a spear gets two. Bryan necks Starks on the top and goes up to finish, but Bill trips him up from the outside and then dumps Claudio into the front row outside. Back in the ring, Starks counters a superplex and gets two on Danielson, and then goes low and hits the Rochambeau to finish at 16:42. I’m kind of confused on what the BCC actually is at the moment, but this was a good opener with kind of a subdued crowd outside of the screaming girls. ***
Meanwhile, The Hung Bucks challenge the Gates of Agony to a ROH Trios title match next week on Rampage.
Meanwhile, we hear more from the Book of Hobbs, and then we get a rebuttal from Miro, who is upset that he broke Hobbs back but couldn’t make him humble. So they shall battle again.
AEW World tag team title: FTR v. The Iron Savages
FTR hits the Shatter Machine on the manager to get rid of him, but the Savages double-team Cash and hit a pair of flying splashes for two. Bronson with a powerbomb for two, but he misses a blind charge and hits the post. Over to Boulder, as Dax slugs away on him, but walks into a powerslam. Boulder misses a moonsault, and FTR hits Bronson with a Shatter Machine and then finishes Boulder with the PowerPlex at 3:22. Nothing to this one. *. This brings out the Workhorsemen to make the next challenge (Crowd: “Who are you?”) while Aussie Open watch from the back. Feels like we’ve had a ton of open challenge gimmicks lately.
Meanwhile, Keith Lee is doing a promo, but Shane Taylor interrupts and introduces Lee Moriarty as his newest signing. For some reason they left the director calling for the next take at the beginning. Unless that was just on Fite, I dunno.
John Silver v. Anthony Bowens
Max and Daddy Ass are banned from ringside due to not reading the fine print, so Bowens attacks to start and slugs away in the corner. Bowens does some scissoring (which Silver has Googled and discovered that it’s being done wrong) and chases him to the floor with a dropkick. Back in the ring, Bowens goes up and Silver boots him to the floor. Back in the ring, Silver runs Bowens into the corner and stops to pose, but Bowens comes back with forearms until Silver puts him down with an enzuigiri. John with the chinlock and he puts Bowens down with kicks, but Bowens comes back with a fameasser for two. They slug it out and Bowens misses a blind charge, allowing Silver to hit the brainbuster for two. Bowens puts him on the floor with a knee strike, but he stops to go chat with the crowd and Evil Uno pops out from under the ring and lays out Bowens, allowing Silver to get the pin at 9:23. Dull match, just a standard midcard thing they’d put on Dark if that was still a thing. *1/2
Meanwhile, Eddie Kingston talks about Claudio, even though they “have a YouTube thing about it” that they could show. Great promo from Eddie here.
Aussie Open v. Local Talent
They finish one of the geeks with a spinebuster into a powerbomb at 0:43. I don’t really get the booking decision of having them lose the ROH tag titles to MJF & Cole if they’re building up a title shot at FTR. Anyway they issue the challenge for WrestleDream but the crowd doesn’t really care.
Meanwhile, RJ City sits down with Toni Storm, who is pretty sure that it’s the business has changed, not her. The people wouldn’t know talent if it “slapped their tits off”.
Scorpio Sky v. Andrade El Idolo
I like that the “Reach for the Sky” theme is back, but I miss Ethan Page dancing to it on Dark. Andrade’s handshake of respect is declined by Scorpio, who takes Andrade down and goes for a leglock. Andrade reverses out of that and puts Scorpio on the floor with a dragon screw, but he tries a moonsault and Sky shoves him down and onto the apron, THE HARDEST PART OF THE RING, for a painful looking bump to the floor. Back in the ring, Sky drops an elbow on him to take over. Scorpio tries a suplex and Andrade reverses to his own, so Sky goes to a neck vice. Sky with a sunset flip, but Andrade hits a pair of dragon screws and they fight to the floor, where Scorpio hits him with a dive. Back in the ring, Andrade with a knee strike to set up the DDT, but Sky counters with a small package for two. Andrade dropkicks the knee to put him down again and follows with a figure-four, into the figure-eight, and Sky submits at 9:13. Another OK match with a dead crowd. **
Afterwards, this brings out the Bang Bang Gang, who aren’t sure where they are tonight but they’re still having fun tonight anyway. We get a funny bit where all the Bullet Club members get funny nicknames, including CardBlade, and then Jay just introduces “Austin Gunn” and moves on. This leads to a challenge for next week, with Jay White against Andrade in what should be a Bang-Banger.
Meanwhile we take a look back at the history between Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi. This was another weird production gaffe as Kevin Kelly was talking about Mike Santana during the end of the Jay White promo and then corrected himself and threw it to this video package instead.
Meanwhile, Shibata continues his phone translator gimmick and apparently challenges someone to WrestleDream but I didn’t really understand what the match is supposed to be.
The Hardy Boyz v. The Righteous
Kevin was talking about “one of the most iconic teams in history” during the Righteous ring entrance and I was like “These guys?” but he was referring to the Hardyz. Matt beats on Vincent in the corner and runs him into the turnbuckles, and the Hardyz double-team with a neckbreaker for two. Matt gets double-teamed by the ice cream men and Vincent gets two. Dutch with a legdrop for two. Dutch slugs away in the corner while the ref informs them that we have 30 seconds until the end of the commercial break, and Vincent goes to mess with Jeff. Matt fights back with a Side Effect and makes the hot tag to Jeff, who runs wild with Jeff Hardy stuff. Twist of Fate gets two. Matt with another Side Effect on Vincent, but Dutch breaks up the swanton and Vincent hits him with a neckbreaker and pins him at 7:41. Really? These goofs who have barely even been on TV get to beat the Hardyz? Little late for Matt and Jeff to be giving people a rub that means anything at this point, but if they’re going down that road there are literally a dozen other teams that could desperately use some star power elevation first. *1/2 This one understandably killed the crowd even more. So they issue a challenge to Cole & MJF and no one cares.
Meanwhile, Ricky Starks challenges Bryan Danielson to a Texas Death Match next week.
TBS title: Kris Statlander v. Dr. Britt Baker DMD
They slug it out to start and Britt gets a neckbreaker, but Statlander powerslams her for two. Statlander with a delayed suplex, so delayed they should call it the build to an AEW PPV main event, and that gets two. They fight to the top rope after a backbreaker from Statlander, but Kris misses a moonsault and Baker goes to work on the knee. Britt with a pair of sling blades, but Statlander hits the Blue Thunder Bomb for two. Michinoku Driver gets two. Britt comes back and preps the glove, but Statlander rolls her up for two. Britt with the Lockjaw, but Kris blocks it and they slug it out. They fight to a double down, but Statlander misses a charge and runs her knee into the corner. Britt tries a Panama Sunrise, looking like Orange Cassidy doing a destroyer in that video going around, but Statlander blocks that. So Britt hits the Angel’s Wings and the curb stomp for two. She goes up again and Kris brings her down for an electric chair, which Britt counters with a standing Lockjaw, and Kris rolls her over for the pin to retain at 11:15. An OK main event but you knew there was zero chance of switching the title the night after giving Statlander her big win over Jade Cargill. **1/2 I continue to be mystified by Baker doing SO MANY jobs lately, as they’re just destroying whatever name value she has left to offer.
This one certainly ran the gamut from really good, with the promos from Eddie and Toni Storm and Miro, all the way down to the completely embarrassing, with whatever the Hardy Boyz were trying to accomplish and that Keith Lee interview. Mostly it felt like a hodge-podge of stuff with no one actually booking the show and a dead crowd. Take a pass this week.