Review: AEW Collision 100 (7-5-2025)

• Taped on Wednesday in Ontario, California! Both sets of big TV had a live + taped thing this week with the holiday. Rare, that! Not very interesting, but rare. So that’s something anyways.

Matches

• Kevin Knight vs Nick Wayne vs Shelton Benjamin: Knight with the DDP rib tape still, and Shelton punches him right in the DDP rib tape. Wayne not enthusiastic about hooking it up with Shelton on even terms, so he just kinda dips while Shelton mauls Kevbo. Wayne feigns teaming up with Knight and then drills him as soon as he can. Nigel repeats something Knight said about Benjamin punching “like a bitch,” and Tony makes very clear that this time he’s not the one who said “bitch.” I know a lot of people loved the super athletic era of Shelton with the jumping and the soaring and whatnot, but I love this aged version of Shelton just manhandling today’s lil’ wrestlers. He just hurls Wayne at Knight. There’s nothing they can do about that or him tossing them both around with German suplays, one after the other, over and over.

  • Because of this, Knight and Wayne have no choice, eventually, and they kinda have to unify their efforts, even if loosely, trying to combo up their offense on Benjamin. They’re not working together, but their focus is the same, and then they try to get at each other, rightly figuring that’s probably an easier win than Shelton. But that also gives Shelton time to recover. It’s a fun tactical gamble for a three-way. Knight steals the win, sorta, after Wayne hits Wayne’s World on Shelton, and then Knight dives onto them both and takes the pin on Shelton, who just got teamed up on but still looked like the clear dominant, individual force in the match. ***½

---

---

• Hechicero & RPG Vice vs Mistico, Hologram & Mark Briscoe: Mistico doesn’t get an Arena Mexico reception or anything but the people in Ontario give him a nice welcome. Some good action, not the super high-end AEW trios match of fame, but just a good match with some guys getting to work. Briscoe gets a beating for a bit which is the right guy to give it to for multiple reasons. Rocky Romero seems really re-inspired lately, having a hoot out there, been fun to watch him recently. Hologram trying to stay undefeated out here, and I am reminded that he’s a guy who recovers so fast when something goes a little wrong, you barely get time to notice before something cool happens anyway. Hechicero does some neat stuff with him.

  • Briscoe jukes dumbass Trent Beretta who is trying to hold him off of breaking a submission attempt and gets on a roll of offense not long after. Kinda chuckle watching Mistico just stand around observing Briscoe and Hologram using chairs as springboards for a dive, waiting for his turn to get back in the ring with Romero for the submission finish on La Mistica. ***½

    • Post-match, M’s JF and VP are on the screen. MJF will “consider” the chat segment with Briscoe on Dynamite. MJF says he’ll beat Briscoe so fast at All In that nobody else will be in the Casino Gauntlet. I enjoy MJF trying to sound more “tough” and “street” now that he’s “in the Syndicate.”

• Scorpio Sky vs Max Caster: Sky is accompanied by Leila Grey, Top Flight, and Christopher Daniels, who walks all the way to the ring with him. They are in SoCal and Sky is a SoCal legend. This has the five-minute time limit. It doesn’t even last a minute before Sky beats Caster. 55 seconds, officially! Alright then!

• Willow Nightingale vs Vipress: Another squash. Vipress gets a little in, while Kris Statlander watches backstage. Wheeler Yuta says hi to her and she goes, “I don’t need your help!” and leaves. Alright then.

• The Outrunners vs FTR: Really like using Outrunners shitting the bed at Dynasty as motivation for them to prove something more given another serious chance. FTR are just incredible in this match, some of the best work they’ve ever done, and it’s pure, basic, mean ass heel wrestling, beating the shit out of their former friends, guys they had a lot of fun hanging out with back when having fun was something they cared about. Turbo Floyd gets his leg busted up good so that he doesn’t have to do a lot and can be extra heroic later on. It feels personal, in a way, like FTR are punishing these guys — and in particular a bloodied Truth Magnum¹ — for ever having “distracted” them with their good times, taking FTR’s eyes off the prize for a short period. That’s bullshit, of course, but it’s how nutbags think, and FTR are currently nutbags, deluded and angry at the world.

  • Magnum is excellent on the sell. The pace is very “feature match from Worldwide in the Crockett era,” and I just don’t know how much more I can say about how comforting and pleasant this match is for me to watch. This is pure, classic, professional wrestling. FTR truly may be the greatest tag team of all-time. I’ve seen the lot through the years. I’ve seen the contenders. FTR have been in league with them all for years and are reaching a point where you can seriously ask if they’ve surpassed everyone, including their influences.

  • I mean, they are phenomenal in this match. Like many, I like the Outrunners, but I am not going to pretend they’re Great Workers. What happens here is not their forte, and not why I like or care about them. This is their “Ultimate Warrior Miracle Match,” like the handful that guy had over his career. They hold up their end, bring some fire, take a beating, and won’t go away, while being carried (this is not some huge negative against them!) by great opponents.

  • Floyd looks great throwing right hands on Cash Wheeler, all one-legged and giving it the bit he has left, then gets knocked off the apron, and FTR hit the power bomb/neckbreaker combo on Magnum — for two. Truth Magnum shouldn’t be kicking out anymore. But he is. Dax is mad. Cash is taken aback, and so is Stokely. And Truth Magnum is giving these lads the sort of frustration that could give the Outrunners the shot at beating the better team.

  • Floyd’s hot tag is more one-legged punching, all grit and heart. He can’t keep Cash up for a slam, but levels him with the best goddamn lariat he’s ever thrown, I bet. Outrunners use their “gimmick” stuff to full effect as inspired underdogs, battling for their lives, to prove something to everyone and themselves.

  • There is almost no chance Outrunners, who are tremendous here, will ever have another match this good. They get some great near-falls, hit the Shatter Machine — the crowd loses it — and they’re too broken down to pin quickly enough, with Dax diving in to break the pin. And at that point, everyone accepts that they are, in fact, seeing A Tag Team Epic. They work that clear heel-face dynamic of yesteryear throughout the bulk of the match, then sprinkle in the modern Tag Team Epic stuff at the end, before FTR win with Shatter Machine, basically desperate to finally finish this thing. Stokely had been holding Truth Magnum by the foot, too, and that’s the only reason they did get the pin when they did. They might have gotten it anyway, they had more in the tank, but they were closer and closer to losing. ****¾

• Thunder Rosa, Queen Aminata, Tay Melo & Anna Jay vs Athena, Megan Bayne, Thekla & Julia Hart: Think it’s a really good call for Tony Khan to look at what has worked for the men’s side of things and decide more women’s trios/quads matches is a good idea. It is! It works for the dudes because the matches are fun, action-packed, and it keeps the names of way more people on the minds of the fans. The same can happen for the women, who have often disappeared between title programs in AEW. In short, it’s a good call.

  • I will say that the excuses made for the iffy reactions to certain Smackdown segments, being it was the second half of a long taping, aren’t holding up so great watching fans be perfectly into Collision, which had the exact same circumstances. Maybe one show was just better. Maybe fans in 2025 really aren’t that crazy about 50-year-old Trish Stratus. Idk!!

  • At this point I’ve accepted that Thunder Rosa is partially comedy wrestler, more in a wink-wink way than being full-on silly, which may just be a stylistic choice because she knows she’s not going to be involved in women’s headline matches anymore, so you might as well be loud as a midcarder. Rosa’s pretty good in this one, she might be having more fun again, at least getting out there and working regular-like. Again, these tags are a very good idea! Even if it’s horseshit it doesn’t hurt to keep everyone thinking they’re actually involved in plans, or at least goddamn could be if they go out there and work hard enough.

  • Aminata one of the few women who can physically match up to Bayne and I like their interaction. Aminata also hits hard enough to make that really work. Thekla will find her groove, I think. Tony and Nigel in particular make her sound interesting in the ways that she naturally is, the way she moves around the ring and whatnot. Remember when Anna Jay did one tour of Japan and came back supposedly super-improved, and she did appear to be better, but then that angle ended and she just went back to seeming indifferent and stagnant?

  • Have been pretty impressed with the returning Tay Melo, I really expected — maybe stupidly! — she’d seem more rusty than she has, she’s come back pretty much full-speed. I mean she’s not Meiko Satomura or anything in the first place, never gonna be, but she wrestles with spirit and looks thrilled to be back in action.

  • Athena is so good, dude. She’s another level from everyone else in this match once she gets going, and they hold off her “getting going” for a good while so that everyone else can showcase first. And Rosa seems to like working with her as they build toward their Supercard of Honor match. Rosa chases Athena out of here, in fact, leaving this 3-on-3. Penelope Ford distracts the referee on Bayne’s behalf, and Skye Blue lays out Tay Melo, also to the benefit of the Rulebreaker side.

  • HEY! This match is good! This has been a good ass Collision! Bayne pins Anna for the finish on a running power bomb. ***½

• Daniel Garcia vs Kyle Fletcher: Winner gets a TNT title shot at All In Texas. Garcia brings Matt Menard with him, Adam Cole joins commentary, Flether is flanked by Don Callis (also on commentary) and DCF enforcer Lance Archer. Garcia is a character in limbo to the point that I really can see him finally snapping and joining Callis’ group sometime soon, but just as likely that he doesn’t. He’s got good underdog babyface energy, but also it’s hard to make that work for years. It can be done, of course; Sami Zayn has made a career of it, but Zayn is also a truly exceptional babyface worker. I don’t know that Garcia, who I like a lot, is quite that.

  • Garcia doing a lot to make me question my questioning of that idea in this very match. Bloodied and fighting his guts out against a bigger, stronger Fletcher, who is also a better athlete and on more of a career roll.

  • Maybe the best commentary we’ve heard from Cole yet, as he opts to call the match like he’s really observing and scouting, and yes, rooting for Garcia a bit, as they share a respect that Cole and Fletcher do not.

  • Garcia keeps hitting desperation big moves to keep himself alive in the match. He’s energy-drained from the blood loss and just the physical exertion of hanging around in the match. And he won’t stay down, Fletcher just hammering Garcia with boots and elbows and Garcia may have a broken nose, he’s taking an absolute beating in here. Callis says he’s concerned about Garcia, but Dan uses his technical prowess to counter a charging Fletcher into the Dragon Tamer, which doesn’t get a finish.

  • Anyways, another fantastic Fletcher match, and Garcia again delivers in spades when given the chance to have this sort of match. Garcia just taking a hideous beating in this match, all convulsions on the floor and whatnot, and eventually Adam Cole is watching someone he respects be mercilessly, ruthlessly taken apart, until he gets over with Garcia and tries to inspire him to keep fighting. A little NXT-corny, but that is the world we live in, Paul Creative’s black-and-gold had an irreversible impact on pro wrestling.

  • Garcia does get back in, but just walks into a running boot and the brainbuster for the Fletcher win. No bullshit, Fletcher just decimated Garcia over the course of this match. Garcia couldn’t keep fighting forever. ****

Other Stuff

• Adam Colebaby kicks us off to tell me what number episode of Collision this is, pretend it has “made strides” in those 100 episodes — the show is what it is, and I generally love it, but no strides really — and thank me, The Fan. Cole intends to continue holding the TNT title. He’s proud to represent TNT as your TNT champion! TNT! TNT!!!!!!!!!! He’s right, though, it is undisputed that his name is Adam Cole. Nobody is going to dispute this!

  • Kyle Fletcher interrupts with his fun glasses. This guy, ooh, his silly glasses make my blood boil. Fletcher lies that Cole has had a huge impact in AEW, but now the future is here and it’s Kyle Time! Fletcher remembers All In 2023 but not the thing most people remember.

  • Daniel Garcia interrupts. You’ll be damned to know it, but Garcia also wants to win the TNT title, as Fletcher does. The two meet later tonight.

  • Cole believes he has Fletcher’s number, and he decides that he’ll face both of them at All In since they both want a shot. Garcia starts cutting one of those great AEW promos about how big of a loser he is and suggests the winner of his match with Fletcher gets the TNT title shot at All In.

• Toni Storm helps sell the pay-per-view. Says it won’t be the greatest women’s match of all-time at All In, but a “lesson” for Mercedes Mone. It’s a good promo.

• Claudio Castagnoli addresses “The Opps.” He is sick of them! He talks foreign and wants another shot at the trios title. So does Wheeler Yuta! At All In. Who’s the third man?!?!

• When I was in kindergarten we had these balloons or the like that were people/animals/Muppet-type monsters as letters, and the letter H was this mf who was afraid of getting haircuts because he thought it would hurt and he basically looked like this:

• Ricochet does not feel like sharing what he spoke with Gates of Agony about recently. He leaves this interview with Lexy Nair to take the camera operator on a journey, where the Gates of Agony are sat over the downed Blake Christian and Lee Johnson.

• After Dynamite last Wednesday, Anthony Bowens was sitting around backstage after losing again. Billy Gunn arrives and tells him to get up. Yeah, Bowens is turning. And should. Again, this is a heel character. Has been since it started. Bowens is focused on winning the Gauntlet at All In. He must trust Billy Gunn! Yeah, trust Billy Gunn. Great singles success himself.

• Another nice Alex Windsor video package/promo, gives everyone some background on her. She’s a good wrestler. How well she does in AEW will be on her connecting with the fans or not, and they’re setting her up decently as someone you want to root for once she gets going.

Three Stars of the Show

1. The Outrunners: That match was FTR-led, yes, but the Outrunners went to a level probably 10x past what most anyone thought was reasonably possible of them, and they deserve all the credit in the world for stepping up and carrying their share of the water in that match. FTR, it should go without saying, are all-time greats. The Outrunners got a shot at redeeming themselves, and even with the loss, they pretty much did that. They can be taken more seriously going forward because this match was so great and laid out exactly for that purpose.

2. FTR: Already said as much as I can say.

3. Kyle Fletcher: Going with him slightly over Garcia, but Dan was great, too. And obviously it’s his selling that made Fletcher look so dangerous, but man does Kyle make sure he really looks dangerous.

Any and all support makes a massive difference for me! If you’re feeling generous or just loving all this Great Content, you can tip via Ko-fi!

1. Who is getting the bulk of the work here because he’s the far better worker, which is fine and makes sense.