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KELLER’S AEW COLLISION REPORT
OCTOBER 21, 2023
MEMPHIS, TENN. AT FEDEX FORUM
AIRED LIVE ON TNT
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Kevin Kelly, Nigel McGuinness
[HOUR ONE]
-The Collision opening theme aired to “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.” Tony Schiavone introduced the show and noted Battle of the Belts would follow immediately afterward. (Note: If you’re listening live to our post-show, we’re going live with our stream right after Collision and “live watching” Battle of the Belts during our podcast with live callers.)
(1) BRYAN DANIELSON vs. ANDRADE EL IDOLO
The bell rang four minutes into the hour. A “This is awesome!” chant began right after the bell. Kelly said fans know what they’re about to see. It sounded like a small crowd, and it is. WrestleTix earlier today estimated there were around 2,500 tickets distributed in this 19,000 seat venue. At 7:00 Danielson reversed Andrade into a ringpost and then hit the Busaiku Knee off the ring apron. He sat and smiled as they cut to a split-screen break. [c/ss]
They fought back and forth after the break. Danielson eventually climbed to the top rope and landed a shotgun dropkick. He kipped up and played to the crowd. Danielson set up a suplex off the top rope, but Andrade countered and double-stomped Danielson and then hit running knees for a near fall. Danielson came back and stomped away at Andrade and then went for a LaBell Lock. Andrade escaped and applied a figure-four mid-ring. He began to bridge into a Figure-Eight, but Danielson scooted to the bottom rope to force a break.
They stood and exchanged chops and kicks. They did a weird spot where Andrade came up short on a kick and then he landed a spinning elbow. It felt a little off. Andrade avoided a Busaiku Knee and then rolled up Danielson. They reversed each other a couple times and Danielson eventually scored a three count with a leverage pin.
WINNER: Danielson in 19:00.
(Keller’s Analysis: Good match, of course, and the crowd seemed to appreciate it start to finish. There was no context before the match, so the market for that match was purely fans who want to see a good 20 minute match without any framing to get them emotionally invested otherwise. That’s needlessly limiting the audience to not have some framing of it with promos and introducing the stakes. It’s disappointing to see the opening soundbites from wrestlers in the key matches is missing for the second straight week.)
-As Danielson celebrated, the lights went out. Then they came back on and Malakai Black surprised Danielson with his signature kick. The lights went out again and then Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli were in the ring by Danielson while Black was nowhere to be seen.
-A vignette aired with Darby talking about how when Nick Wayne came to AEW, Wayne would always ask why fans hated him so much. Darby said fans online said he wasn’t ready for AEW and was too young. Darby said their words won’t matter when he’s dead, but rather what he accomplished will matter. They showed footage of Wayne’s chipped tooth and bloodied mouth from last week. Darby said he’ll be at Dynamite this Wednesday when Tony Khan gives Sting a gift, “and if it is what I think it is, it’ll be special.” He invited Wayne to come find him on Wednesday.
(2) SKYE BLUE vs. HOLLYHOOD HALEY
Blue made her ring entrance. Schiavone said she has a surly attitude. Haley was already in the ring. The bell rang 27 minutes into the hour. Schiavone said the gift TK is giving Sting is going to be phenomenal and historic. Schiavone talked about Blue’s attitude lately and said her only friend appears to be Willow Nightingale. Haley swept Blue’s legs, but Blue ducked her charge in the corner and landed a running powerbomb. She followed with a side-approach sunset flip for the win.
WINNER: Blue in 2:00.
(Keller’s Analysis: Not much to this at all, but it kept the focus on Blue’s personality change. Schiavone is doing most of the heavy-lifting on announcing now including the majority of the play-by-play now.) [c]
(3) AUSTIN & COLTEN GUNN (w/Jay White) vs. THE OUTRUNNERS (Turbo Troy & Truth Magnum)
The Gunns and White made their ring entrance. The Outrunners were already in the ring. It was billed as their Collision debut. Turbo was flexing like Jesse Ventura back in the day. Nigel dryly joked that he won the Jesse “The Body” Ventura award in 1984. Schiavone said he wasn’t even born then. The bell rang 35 minutes into the hour. The Gunns hit their finisher on Turbo for a quick win. Kelly said they want gold.
WINNERS: The Gunns in 2:00.
-The big screen showed the guy in the devil mask looking around. White and the Gunns looked around, concerned.
-Backstage, Lexi Nair interviewed Orange Cassidy about defending against John Silver on Battle of the Belts. Kris Statlander was wandering in the background. She said she needed to get pumped for her match and she put Lexi in a fireman’s carry and did squats.
(4) EDDIE KINGSTON vs. JEFF JARRETT (w/Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, Satnum Singh, Karen Jarrett) – Memphis Street Fight
Dave Brown joined the commentators. Kelly said if Jarrett wins, then Lethal earns a future AEW Title match against Eddie Kingston. He asked, “Correct?” There was dead silence for a second. Schiavone interjected it’d be for an ROH Title shot. Kelly then said, “For the Ring of Honor Championship, correct?” Schiavone then confirmed it.
(Keller’s Analysis: This is pertinent example of something significant happening 24 hours earlier on AEW’s least-watched show, Rampage, and rather than show a brief recap of the set-up, you had an announcer stumbling over mentioning the stakes, but not offering more of an explanation of how this rather absurd stipulation came about.)
Jarrett got in his face. Kelly told everyone to lower the temperature and “let the violence be in the ring.” Jarrett charged at Kingston on the ramp with a trash can lid. The bell rang 42 minutes into the hour. Kingston took care of Jarrett’s guys coming after him including Singh with a low-blow. Jarrett threw Kingston into a folding table that had popcorn on it. Kingston threw a bunch of hot dogs at Jarrett from inside a cooler. Schiavone said, “This is everything we thought this would be.” (Who had any time to think about what this would be? It’s just a random match with a dumbed down version of a street fight.) Kingston squirted mustard and ketchup on Jarrett. Karen interfered. Lethal then gave Kingston a leaping cutter off the ramp through the table below. They cut to a partial split-screen break. [c/ss]
Back from the break, Jarrett bashed Kingston’s leg with a trash can. Jarrett put Kingston in a figure-four. Kingston reversed it and then went on the attack. He fended off Lethal and Dutt. Karen entered. Kingston chopped Dutt into Karen. He then fended off Lethal again. He bashed Singh with Jarrett’s guitar. Jarrett gave Kingston his Stroke finisher for a near fall. Lethal attacked Kingston. Karen slapped Kingston. Kingston gave her a middle finger. Singh entered and gave Kingston a high chokeslam. Jarrett delivered another Stroke. Lethal then gave him a Lethal Injection. Jarrett scored a three count. As Lethal stood over Kingston, Kelly said Jarrett earned an ROH Title shot for Lethal against Kingston at a future time.
WINNER: Jarrett in 13:00.
(Keller’s Analysis: The Public Enemy tag team in ECW had a real street edge, and then they went to WCW and became a mid-card comedy act. That’s what this match seemed to do to Eddie Kingston. Jarrett pinning Kingston in 2023 with that kind of cartoon brawl is a fitting summation of how AEW has gone off course in recent months. The idea that anyone would sanction or agree to giving someone a shot at a world title of any kind if someone else beat them in a no-rules situation where they could be attacked four-on-one is ludicrous. It makes Kingston and AEW look weak and it cheapens the value of getting a shot at the ROH World Title I know this has hardly been sacred ground in pro wrestling over the years, including AEW, but this was about as weak of a way to get a title shot as I’ve seen.) [c]
-Lexi interviewed The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn backstage. Caster asked Lexi to use a belt on her. Anthony Bowens said Max got it all wrong. Billy said he’s “going through a transitional phase.” Bowens said Matt Menard can’t even get on the same page as Danny Garcia.
[HOUR TWO]
(5) MIRO vs. ACTION ANDRETTI
C.J. Perry made her entrance first. Andretti then made his entrance. Miro then made his ring entrance. Kelly said Miro is fired up. He said Miro would like nothing more than for his wife to go back home. The bell rang three minutes into the hour. Andretti landed two early dropkicks. Miro fought back and grounded Andretti and threw him into the ringpost. Fans cheered and chanted “Miro!” They cut to a split-screen break. [c/ss]
Back from the break, Andretti fought back and landed a flip dive onto Miro. Andretti lifted Miro into a torture rack, but his back gave out. Miro then pummeled him and applied his Game Over camel clutch for the win. They cut to C.J. who seemed pouty as she stared at Miro celebrate the win. She then smiled and applauded, but in a reserved fashion. Kelly said C.J. has said she just wants Miro to be successful and has never said otherwise.
WINNER: Miro in 11:00.
(Keller’s Analysis: The fans are cheering Miro and chanting his name. Andretti is a babyface who always comes off like he learned how to treat and talk about women from 1970s TV game shows, so Miro abducting him last week wasn’t really framing Miro as a heel. C.J.’s character is hard to figure out, also. Is she a babyface or a heel for wanting to have her own career if Miro doesn’t approve of her not staying at home and being a dutiful housewife? Everything about this is just a mess.)
-Schiavone plugged Ruby Soho getting a title match against Hikaru Shida on Dynamite. He also plugged the Trios Title match for Battle of the Belts.
-Lexi interviewed Anna Jay, Menard, Parker, and Garcia backstage about their Trios Title match. Lexi said last night the beef was squashed and asked if it’s still squashed. (If you didn’t watch Rampage, you have no idea what she’s talking about.) Menard said at 9 a.m. they had a family breakfast and are on the same page. He said it was a great morning because they had no dancing. Anna stormed off. Menard said it was just a joke. Lexi stammered and interviewed Ruby Soho. She asked Angelo Parker if they have family problems. He said the family is falling apart, but at least he’ll be a champion after tonight. Ruby said that got her thinking about everybody thinks they deserve a title. She said she deserves a title, so she is going to become a champion whether it’s on a Monday, Tuesday, or a Wednesday. Lexi said, “We’ve got a lot going on.”
(Keller’s Analysis: So before this interview segment, they announced Ruby has a title shot on Wednesday. Then Ruby has this orchestrated exchange with Parker that gives her the idea she deserves a title, and she’ll win one on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday which in and of itself makes no sense since it could imply she wants a title shot on Raw, NXT or Impact. But it’s worse because they already just announced in the prior segment she’s getting a title shot on Wednesday. They’ve gotten stuff out of order before, and this promo seemed like it should have been Ruby reacting to getting a title shot, not saying she deserves one any night of the week. So this was either out of order or just confusing. As for the Ruby-Parker interaction, there seemed to be some chemistry there so I’m curious if they’ve got something in mind for those two. Ruby looked like she was checking Parker out and he seemed receptive. Both are talented and could use something fresh for their characters to play off of, and as they acknowledged, both were part of dysfunctional factions.) [c]
-Schiavone said something is going on backstage. They cut to a bloodied Kingston unwrapping the tape from his wrists and ranting about Jay Lethal lowering himself to hanging out with a “carny son of a bitch Jarrett.” He said Jay used to be a pro wrestler and he used to respect him. “What happened to you?” he said. He told him to find his way again.
(6) FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) vs. DARIAN BENGSTON & BAD THAD BROWN
The bell rang 23 minutes into the hour. Talk about starting from the bottom up. The lights went out seconds into the match. When the lights came back on, House of Black were attacking them. Schiavone said House of Black have interrupted their broadcast twice tonight.
WINNERS: No contest in under 1:00. [c]
-They hyped upcoming matches on next week’s TV shows. Schiavone hyped the Battle of the Belts line-up. Dynamite: MJF vs. Juice Robinson for the Dynamite Diamond Ring, Hikaru Shida vs. Ruby Soho, Tony Khan has a gift for Sting (Schiavone touted, “We understand this will be incredible.”), The Young Bucks & “Hangman” Page vs. The Hardys & Brother Zay, and Renee Paquette will have a sitdown interview with Chris Jericho. He also mentioned Full Gear’s announced match of MJF vs. Jay White.
(7) RICKY STARKS & BIG BILL vs. CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI & WHEELER YUTA – AEW Tag Team Title match
The bell rang 33 minutes into the hour. They couldn’t have done less to build up this match during the prior 90 minutes. Jim Ross joined in on commentary. He said he had breakfast with “the King” today. They didn’t say Jerry Lawler’s name. Starks ran around the ring early and tested his pulse. Ross touted how improved Yuta was. They cut to a partial split-screen break at 5:00 when everyone was fighting at ringside. [c/pss]
Back from the break, Starks shoved Claudio into the ringside steps. They cut to another break at 13:00 with Claudio beating up Starks at ringside. [c/ss]
Back live, Claudio had Starks down in the ring. Claudio scored a near fall on Starks at 19:00. He then tagged in Yuta and then did his giant swing. Yuta dropkicked him during the swing and scored a near fall, interrupted by Bill. Bill set up a chokeslam on both Claudio and Yuta, but Claudio and Yuta easily fended him off and knocked him out of the ring. Claudio was about to launch Yuta onto Starks, but House of Black attacked Claudio and Bill. Starks then finished Yuta with Roshambo for the win.
WINNERS: Starks & Bill in 20:00 to retain the AEW Tag Team Titles.
-FTR and Danielson charged out but House of Black beat them down. Jon Moxley then made his way out through the crowd and joined in the fight. Schiavone excitedly noted that FTR and BCC were fighting side by side against House of Black. Ross said it was a lot of combustible elements. FTR gave the Big Rig to Starks after House of Black left. Schiavone exclaimed, “What a moment on Collision we have seen, fans!”
(Keller’s Analysis: This show saw House of Black show up three times and interfere during two of those matches while in progress leading to the conclusion. I get that, in concept, this show was built around having House of Black return and “make a statement,” but it comes at a price of viewers perceiving that they can be invested in matches, but the wrestlers officially involved won’t decide the outcome. Of course that’s a staple of pro wrestling over the years, but it was a bit much here. Will AEW get fans to boo House of Black this time or are they fighting a losing battle?)
RECOMMENDED NEXT: 10/21 AEW BATTLE OF THE BELTS (10/21): Acclaimed & Gunn vs. Menard & Parker & Garcia, Statlander vs. Nightingale, Cassidy vs. Silver, Samoa Joe vs. Tony Nese
OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: AEW Collision results (10/21): Murphy’s review of Ricky Starks and Big Bill vs. Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta for the AEW Tag Titles, Bryan Danielson vs. Andrade El Idolo
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