Review: AEW Collision (6-21-2025)

Time to Collide!

• Live from “Kent, Washington”!

Matches

• AR Fox vs Jon Moxley: Fox gets to scrap a little, but this isn’t one of his matches where he hangs around and hangs around and then loses. It could be, in theory, but Wheeler Yuta interferes right when Fox is building his normal bit of momentum before he loses. He gets one more flash of hope before Moxley just kind of obliterates him, hitting a Gotch-style piledriver and then just hammering down forearms, backyard UFC king that Jon-boy is these days, and then into a choke for the win. **

  • This was mainly here to provide Moxley an active reason to be in the ring for a promo. He’s watched Hangman Adam “piss away” his “opportunities” and “God-given gifts” for years. He just hates it! And him!

---

---

• Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Daniel Garcia & Bandido vs FTR, Kyle Fletcher & Konosuke Takeshita: I am not saying “ProtoShita” and you can’t make me. Bandido and FTR do some really good work together. Keep having the thought that maybe Adam Cole needs to go home to Dad (HHH) like Mel Black did, but I can’t really figure what Cole would do in WWE any more than I can what Black is going to be doing in WWE, other than filling a spot. Which is not a bad gig, that’s what Cole is doing in AEW basically, and Black was barely even managing that. This isn’t an elite (!) level AEW multi-man, but a good one as usual, has a bit more of an ROH/PWG feel than some of them do. Maybe it’s just the amount of superkicks got me feeling that way. Rod eats the pin after the Shatter Machine. Rod’s a real pin-eater. ***½

  • Post-match, Tony Schiavone calls “bogus!” on the rulebreakers doing further attacks. Cash was trying to call someone down, but instead we get The Outrunners. Good. Great. Look out. Cash telling Outrunners they’re “still cool” but one of the funnymen says no.

• Shane Taylor vs Swerve Strickland: Taylor has his entire gang with him and Swerve only has Nana. But realistically we’re talking levels and I don’t think Swerve will need much help because if you add up the roster value of everyone on the other side, they don’t come within 10 points of Swerve alone. Just a hunch!! Now I do like this match, because I really like Shane Taylor and Swerve gives him a fair bit. There’s a part in the middle where the STP group and Nana are gambling in the corner, and Tony Schiavone gets up to put some money in, too. It’s a good little comedy bit. Swerve’s local, as Kent is a suburb or whatever of Tacoma, just about a half hour up the road, and the fans are into him from the jump, also get in some support for DEFY Wrestling. Swerve wins, stunning the world. ***

• Taya Valkyrie & MxM Collection vs Mark Briscoe, Willow Nightingale & Hologram: They’re not sure what to do with Hologram but still want to push him, so The Conglomeration is reformed with him as the newest member. This is decently spirited house show wrestling, which is fine. It takes up its time and engages the crowd. MxM are good enough at feeding themselves to Hologram and Briscoe. Mark pins Mansoor. **½

---

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!

---

• Gates of Agony vs Kevin Knight & Mike Bailey: Not saying “JetSpeed” either. One thing I’ll give The Outrunners, they’re not just called, like, TurboTruth. Ricochet joins commentary. Gates are a good team, could be more than this but right now they’re filling a role like, say, the Islanders did in late 80s WWF. Credible enough, but if you get what’s happening you know what they’re not gonna do, and they always give the effort. But this is a different time and place, too, and I think if these lads keep sticking with it and busting ass, they really might be players in the AEW tag division once we’re done with the Hurt Syndicate’s reign. Ricochet applauding the Gates, and they seem interested in joining his would-be gang. Really liked this one, just good tag wrestling with a nice pace. Knight and Bailey win so Ricochet is reasonably less impressed than before. ***¾

• Thunder Rosa, Queen Aminata, Tay Melo & Anna Jay vs Athena, Megan Bayne, Penelope Ford & Thekla: Hell yeah, let the ladies cook with these, too. Great idea. Hope it rocks. Everyone starts hitting each other to start except for Aminata and Ford, who just stand there, wait for the others to exit the ring, and then start wrestling. Outstanding. They get about 10 minutes and not sure you could say they made the most of it structurally or whatever. It’s a decent match, nothing special, but some good moments. Ford is such a willing battler. Bayne has some nice showcase spots. Athena and Rosa lay into one another nicely to build a match for the six people watching Ring of Khanor weekly. Aminata and Thekla seem likely they might eventually figure out how to really do something good together. Tay Melo has come back looking to impress. Athena is really great out here, man. She pins Rosa with an iffy belt shot thanks to help from Red Velvet. I guess I could mention that Billie Starkz also got to stand around outside the entire match. ***

Other Stuff

• Big thing up top for the ‘scussion: Kazuchika Okada and Don Callis join Tony Schiavone in the ring to speak on the All In match with Kenny Omega and, we can assume, their recent team-up and the comical blood-gurgling attack last week. “You can almost smell the diverticulitis coming out of his mouth!” OK, Don.

  • Lance Archer and Josh Alexander are also here.

  • Callis reckons he’s “the man who knows all of (Omega’s) weaknesses,” but I’m not sure how important that idea is in this situation. First of all, Okada already knows Omega extremely well, that’s the entire reason they’re going to wrestle again in Texas. Second of all, Omega’s main weakness is the highly-publicized diverticulitis. I don’t know that it takes long rides in Manitoba to formulate the plan of “hit him in the diverticulitis.”

  • Speaking of trying really hard to force an idea that doesn’t hold up to much (any) scrutiny, Callis goes on to assure Omega that if he makes it to All In, he will be alone! He has no friends! He destroyed his relationship with the Bucks, his relationship with Callis, and he doesn’t have ONE FRIEND LEFT. I mean, he’s made some friends recently. Swerve. Mark Briscoe. The Opps, more or less.

  • And here’s Mark Briscoe. He says he’s Omega’s friend, but he’s not Omega’s only friend — and we get the return of Kota Ibushi! Visually, he looks in great shape. Archer approaches and Briscoe just fucking races to him because Mark Briscoe rules. Ibushi gets to Alexander in the ring and lays him out with a kick. Looks a little slow but that’s to be expected for various reasons.

  • Omega steps in as Ibushi stays with his back to Zuch, then slowly turns to face off with him. They trade forearms before Ibushi lights him up a little with a combo of strikes. They leave it at that. I really hope Ibushi can be even 70 percent of who he used to be, because I love the dude, but I won’t be disappointed if it’s just gone, either. He’s given a lot physically.

• I love when Collision busts out the Survivor Series-esque group promos. These are, according to Tony Schiavone, “some of the women in our huge, eight-man women event”:

• On the other side, Athena “does not like” Thekla, feels Penelope Ford is “crazy,” and that she herself is “way bigger” than Megan Bayne, who is the least amused of all. Thekla is mainly indifferent and possibly finds it all cute when Athena talks and leaves. None of the others say anything.

• After Grand Slam Mexico, Renee Paquette caught up with Mercedes Mone, who now has six belts. Mercy is sick of Toni Storm and won’t have mind games played on her! Agree with those of you who have talked about this feud sort of holding up the entire women’s division. Neither belt is really active for the moment, and the two biggest stars are just focused on each other, and listen, I am admittedly generally favorable toward Tony Khan because he books wrestling closest to the way I like it that I’m gonna get anymore, but he is not without flaws, same as any of us, and he has historically had a hard time with depth in the women’s division, which I felt was one thing in 2019-21 when they, uh, didn’t have a ton of women good enough to be featuring — which was its own issue then — but it’s a different thing now because this division, same as WWE’s, is stacked with real talent now, most of it sitting around, spinning wheels for the moment.

• Later, here’s some Toni Storm horseshit. Storm feels Mone has been doing nothing but “eating steak, playing on your telephone, and trying to kiss (her),” then makes note that Mone just won another title, so, y’know, not only those things. “Is that all this is to you?” re: titles. Yeah, T-Bone, probably. She says a “MF” bomb as something that’s supposed to OHHHH everyone. I am looking forward to this match, but I don’t think either of them have really found the sweet spot for the feud and the build-up, which kind of reveals itself with Storm leaning so heavily into over-describing her character and motivations.

• Kris Statlander is mad about her lack of career progression and inability to settle on a personality. Again. Wheeler Yuta interrupts and she is noooot good at yelling at him, good gravy. After she shoves Yuta away unconvincingly, she turns around to bump into Jon Moxley, who tells her, “Don’t ever, ever let anybody tell you who you are or what you’re worth.” And then he leaves. She was ready to scrap there, but all he had was words. Her “worried” acting was awful, too. I like Stat, love watching her matches, but to be honest, it’s not that hard figure reasons she is pogoing around between ideas instead of finding any firm footing in AEW.

• At one point we return from commersh with the Workhorsemen ringside fighting Big Bill and Bryan Keith. This gets interrupted by Christian Cage and his flunkies. Christian eventually gets around to saying he and Nick Wayne are going to go after the tag belts, and that Nick will now stand by his side and not behind him.

  • Bill gets on the mic and like his exchange with MVP some weeks back, it’s some dopey, Russo-y mess. He theorizes that Wayne must be Cage’s “adopted son” because Mother Wayne is a big slut and Nick’s dad could be anyone. Does Bill watch the show? Does he know what the dynamic is with these people?

• Here’s some video of Anthony Bowens being a huge loser and Billy Gunn trying to help him. Bowens has basically accepted that he’s a loser and he’s moving toward understanding he’s a heel. Gunn does a good job seeming like what he is, a guy trying his best but over-matched when it comes to helping anyone do anything in singles wrestling.