Collision Slam Dunk Sunday Review – 03.22.26

Time to catch up? Time to catch up! Dynamite | Collision Slam Dunk Saturday

Collision is split into two parts this weekend and tonight’s Part Two was recorded after Dynamite ended on March 18th at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, CA. The announcing team for tonight’s show include Tony Schiavone and Nigel McGuinness on match calls and analysis, Arkady Aura on ring introductions, and Lexy Nair on backstage interviews and breaking news segments. Let’s watch some wrestling!

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Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong vs Jay Lethal and Lee Johnson

Blake Christian is out with Lethal and Johnson. Lethal gets Cassidy’s jean jacket and slips it on Johnson before the match starts. Lethal decides he needs to do the Flair strut, and Strong seems unimpressed. Strong works a wristlock as Schiavone talks about the passing of “Loverboy” Dennis Condrey. Strong and Lethal start slugging it out and then Strong fires up with a leg lariat. Cassidy tags in and Strong picks him up and tosses him directly into Lethal’s chest. Strong hits a backbreaker and Cassidy drops a massive walking elbow. Lethal rakes the eyes and tags in Johnson. Lethal grabs a Side Russian as Johnson flies in with a dropkick, and Johnson’s cover gets two. Cassidy gets rolled up for two, and then there’s a series of standing switches. Johnson transitions to a full nelson but Cassidy breaks it to slip his hands into his pockets. Cassidy hits Johnson with a hands-in-pockets dropkick. Lethal tags in and wants the Figure Four, but Cassidy kicks him off and to the floor. Strong charges out and gets waffled by a Lethal forearm, and then Johnson fires up to smash Cassidy with a lariat. Johnson yanks up Cassidy for a vertical suplex that gets two. We go to commercials.

Cassidy kicks out of a Johnson cover at two when the show returns. Christian is now wearing Cassidy’s jacket and is fully imitating him on the floor. Lethal and Johnson hit running lariats and then position Cassidy in the Tree of Woe before distracting the referee. Christian charges in to wallop Cassidy, and then Johnson smacks him with a dropkick as Lethal covers and gets two. Johnson tags in and Cassidy fights his way out of the corner to finally tag in Strong. Strong smashes Lethal and Johnson around and it ends with Strong crushing Johnson with a swinging back suplex that gets two. Cassidy tags in and Johnson kicks Strong into him. Johnson hits a dragonfly suplex and a brainbuster on Cassidy and Lethal flies in with the Savage elbow. Johnson’s cover is broken up at two by Strong shoving Lethal into the pile. Lethal gets hit with Stundog Millionaire, and Strong flies in to smash Lethal with some elbows. Strong hoists Cassidy up and tosses him at Lethal. Cassidy smashes Lethal with a DDT while Christian leaps up on the apron to detain Strong. Cassidy smashes Christian with the Superman punch and Strong wallops a charging Johnson with a knee lift. Strong lifts Johnson into a double knee backbreaker and Cassidy covers Johnson and gets three.

A solid opener for this portion of the show, but this crowd is fully cooked at this point in the tapings. Strong and Cassidy are a good team, maybe a little bland, but they’re both long-time pros who know how to put together a match. Johnson and Lethal were fine heel opponents here and Christian being an on-the-floor antagonist second was a good use of him as well. Not a bad start to this evening’s stuff but again, this crowd is SHOT. 3.5*

Winners – Strong/Cassidy (Strong double knee backbreaker on Johnson)

Strong grabs a mic post-match to say that he owes some folks an explanation. Strong didn’t know what he was doing with the Conglomeration after Buddy Kyle left, and he realized that the change that needed to happen was on him. Strong declares himself an official member of the Conglomeration, but here’s The Dogs on the video board to challenge Strong and Cassidy for next week. Strong and Cassidy seem to be just fine with this, and high five.

Here’s a look back at Divine Dominion winning the Women’s tag team championships from Babes of Wrath. Nightingale and Cameron want a rematch!

AEW Women’s Tag Team Champions Divine Dominion (Lena Kross and Megan Bayne) vs Alex Gracia and Vipress

This is non-title and probably won’t be very long. Bayne wallops Gracia with a shoulder tackle and then drives her shoulder into Gracia a bunch of times in the Dominion corner. Kross tags in and she and Bayne destroy Gracia with running big boots. Bayne and Kross smash Vipress and Gracia together and then wipe them out with lariats. Bayne yanks up Gracia and she and Kross plant Gracia with a double slam that gets three.

I really like butternut squash soup, but you can really only get it in the fall at restaurants. I wish it was a more year-round deal, you know? 1*

Winners – Bayne/Kross (double slam on Gracia)

Tommaso Ciampa vs Lio Rush

Schiavone says Rush has a new look and it appears to be Insane Tiny Person Who Thinks He’s Gollum. Ciampa dumped Rush out of the Battle Royal at Revolution to apparently precipitate this match. I don’t like Lio’s chances here, I’ll be honest. Ciampa stares on bemusedly as Rush approaches with a hand extended. Ciampa kicks the hand away and Rush ends a series of rope running with a double kick that sends Ciampa to the floor. Rush hits a tope suicida that sends Ciampa into the announce desk. Rush starts smashing Ciampa around on the floor but Ciampa fires out with a kick before dropping Rush over the barricade. Ciampa yanks Rush up and runs him back in. Rush grabs a roll up for one but Ciampa responds with an immediate kick to Rush’s gut. Rush snaps off a rana and a lariat. Ciampa dumps Rush to the apron and then rams him head-first into the ring post. Ciampa smashes Rush with a running knee as we go to commercials.

Ciampa gets hit with a spinning kick from Rush when the show returns. Rush runs into another knee from Ciampa, but Rush shakes it off and smashes Ciampa with a thrust kick. Rush hits a stunner and covers Ciampa for two. Rush chats with himself before ascending. Ciampa rolls slowly away, so Rush comes down. They exchange kicks and Ciampa gets hit with two more stunners. Rush hits a Blue Thunder Bomb and gets two. They start slugging it out and then they bite each other’s hands. Rush hits a roundhouse kick and Ciampa responds by walloping Rush into a corner. Ciampa yanks Rush up for Project Ciampa and Rush somehow kicks out at two. Ciampa lowers the knee pad and smashes Rush with a running knee that gets three.

Sometimes you watch a match and you just want one guy to kick the shit out of the other guy and when he doesn’t and it’s competitive, it makes you mad. Like, functionally, there wasn’t much wrong with this. Rush doesn’t sell very much and the whole thing went a bit fast for my liking, but it was a competent match between two professionals. My problem is that I don’t care for Rush much and I kind of want Psycho Killer Ciampa to be more Killer than he’s being. Maybe it’s just my issue, I don’t know. Regardless, a two segment Lio Rush match wasn’t really my jam. 2.5*

Winner – Tommaso Ciampa (running knee strike)

After a break, we get promos from Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega regarding Wednesday night’s big match. AEW Men’s World Champion MJF will also appear.

AEW Trios World Championship: Jet Speed and Mistico (C) vs Konosuke Takeshita, Josh Alexander and El Clon

Mistico’s entrance theme finally snaps this crowd back into coherence. It was funny to hear Bailey and Knight talk about wrestling with their new masks for part of that match at Revolution with Knight specifically saying he has no idea how Mistico wrestles so well when Knight found it so impossibly hard to breathe regularly.

It’s Clon and Mistico to start but the Callis guys have a plan and jump everyone. They all go to the floor and the Callis guys have the immediate advantage. Clon and Bailey end up in the ring and there’s some acrobatics before Alexander comes in to smash Bailey down. Knight comes in and fights off Clon and Alexander. Alexander cuts that off and he and Clon dispose of Knight. Mistico comes in and Clon hits a La Magistral for two. Mistico snaps off a rana and then gets dumped to the apron. Mistico hits a springboard rana on Clon and Takeshita and Alexander come in to get hit with a Mistico double elbow. Takeshita and Clon get dropped by Mistico and all of the faces come in to hit tope suicidas on the Callis guys. We go to commercials.

Clon has Bailey’s leg tied up when the show returns. (Alexander got hurt during this match and is not on the apron currently, so it either happened on the suicide dive spot before commercials or during the break – anyway, get well soon Josh!) Takeshita tags in and Bailey cranks out a thrust kick that drops Takeshita. Knight tags in and Takeshita hits a back elbow and a Blue Thunder Bomb that gets a long two. Takeshita misses a charge and Knight yanks him into a spike DDT. Clon and Mistico get tags and Mistico hits an immediate springboard cross-body. Clon snaps off a backbreaker and covers Mistico for two. Clon gets caught with a kaman giri and then Mistico follows with a springboard rana. Takeshita breaks up Mistico’s cover at two. Bailey pulls Takeshita to the floor and Mistico dumps Clon out as well. Mistico ascends and hits both Callis guys with a cross-body. Mistico pulls Clon in for a two count, and Knight tags in. Clon hits Knight with a running elbow after Knight’s UFO Splash attempt fails. Clon snaps off his Pele kick and then crushes Knight with a springboard moonsault that gets two. Takeshita charges in and Knight flattens Clon with a lariat. Takeshita dumps Knight to the apron, but Knight shakes it off and wallops Takeshita with a springboard lariat. Mistico tags in and he hits Clon with a cross-body and La Mistica. Clon taps immediately.

Losing Alexander mid-match really kind of changed the flow of this whole thing but full credit to everyone involved for improvising the rest of it. I like Knight and Bailey with Mistico as a trios team, and I really enjoy Takeshita and Clon too, so this was a decent way to end things. The crowd perked up for Mistico and they got a nice hand when they won the match. It’s nice to send fans home happy, isn’t it? Indeed. I expect the champs will have to deal with LFI after their squash on Saturday’s show, but we’ll see what happens. 3.25*

Winners – Jet Speed and Mistico (La Mistica on Clon)

Schiavone does a quick rundown of the big events of this week’s Dynamite and we’re out.

This was almost a carbon copy of last night’s show in terms of matches and segments, but I enjoyed last night a bit more. Overall, if this was one full episode of Collision I’d probably be thumbs up for the whole thing, but the Rush-Ciampa match bothered me a bit and the main event was damaged by Alexander’s injury and subsequent disappearance. Thumbs in the middle for tonight’s show as it kind of went downhill for me after the opener.

Thanks for reading and commenting. Enjoy your week.