SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Welcome everyone!
What a headline-making week it was for AEW last week. And it wasn’t even anything that happened inside the ring making those headlines. No, a crowd made headlines for all the right reasons for once. The anti-ICE chants before the main event on Dynamite were a beautiful thing. The fact not one second of it was censored shows you exactly how AEW overall feels about the situation and I, for one, am proud to be an AEW fan because of it.
On to some more light-hearted topics, like my Rising and Fading Stars of the week. This week, it’s all about the Rising Stars only.
As the kids say, LETS GO!!!!
RISING STAR OF THE WEEK
COLLISION
Yeah… I am talking about the show that airs on Saturday nights, not a new tag team.
It’s crazy what Collision has looked like the few weeks. It really feels like Tony Khan has made an effort to build up Collision, smartly, leading up to the Grand Slam Australia special.
Two weeks ago the show started with a “Hangman” Adam Page match. Later in the show there was a TBS Title defense by Willow Nightengale. Then the main event of the show saw CMLL World Champion Claudio Castagnoli defend his title against Roderick Strong.
That was followed up last week with a night where three AEW titles were defended. AEW International Champion Kazuchika Okada successfully defended his title against Adam Priest. That was followed by a successful defense by the Babes of Wrath. Then in the main event you had Tommaso Ciampa winning the TNT Title from Mark Briscoe. Not to mention Darby Allin also had a match on the show.
That brings us to this past week’s show which opened with a Young Bucks vs GOA match for a spot in the number 1 contenders 3-way tag match on Dynamite. You also had the Kris Statlander vs. Thekla strap match set up. MJF gave a very passionate promo that was taped after his loss to Brody King. Then Ciampa defended his title against Claudio and Strong.
All of those are just the highlights because they have also been doing a lot of pre-taped promos building up future matches, meaning you are seeing guys like the AEW World Champion MJF, Jon Moxley, Kyle Fletcher, and Okada on Collision, even if it’s for 90 seconds.
I know all of this could just be the build to what feels like a mini-PPV on Collision this coming week, but maybe it’s not. Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of Tony Khan finally realizing what his 3rd and 4th hour of television can actually be. What is that you ask? Worth watching.
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
Check out the latest episode of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-show covering the latest episode of Dynamite: CLICK HERE (or search “wade Keller” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)
1st Runner Up – Brody King
This one was a no-brainer. Despite the way he did it, Brody did pin the AEW World Champion. I know this match was the cause of a lot of debate on the PWTorch podcasts, with PWTorch editor Wade Keller really being against how this went down.
Personally, AEW not doing this type of match/finish almost ever made this fine with me. A little bit over the top, but the crowd ate it up and no one, and I mean no one, thinks less of MJF after that match. Hell, I would bet a guy who also uses three letters as his name loved it. Probably reminded him of his buddy with three letters selling for a guy I won’t mention here. I’m talking about HHH, HBK, and a third “WWF Legend.”
Anyway, the point of the match wasn’t to bury MJF or even really make Brody look that strong. It was a classic heel slipping on a banana peel ending. Could they have done it a little better and in a different way? Of course they could have. That said, I didn’t dislike what they went with like others did.
So now we have our main event for Grand Slam Australia and it should be a good one. Will we get a “Dusty finish” or will MJF beat Brody clean? I’m advocating for the latter, but either way I am pumped for this weeks Collision.
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