AEW Collision Review - April 27, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Claudio Castagnoli Accepted AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland's AEW World Championship Open Challenge

This is how Dynamite should have opened on Wednesday, but reportedly, AEW wanted to save Strickland's celebration for the start of Collision because they knew it'd have a big lead-in from the NBA game that preceded it. Okay, whatever. This didn't feel as special as it should have because Castagnoli quickly interrupted him, but at least they effectively set up the night's championship main event.

Unified World Trios Champions Bang Bang Gang (Jay White and The Gunns) def. Action Andretti and Top Flight

​I don't understand why AEW wouldn't just retire the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship and simply refer to Bang Bang Gang as just the AEW World Trios Champions. And, yes, they're apparently going by Bang Bang Gang now and not Bullet Club Gold. I'm not a fan of the change, but oh well. This was a quality contest given the level of talent involved, but I am begging AEW to do more with White on this own and do the six-man stuff only on occasion.

Rey Fenix def. The Beast Mortos

This marked Fenix's first match since getting injured in the fall. He was out of action for a lot longer than I thought it would be. It's odd his return felt so anticlimactic and wasn't saved for a bigger moment. Nonetheless, this was top-notch stuff from these two. Mortos has been killing it over on ROH TV recently and I'm happy he got this opportunity. Fenix setting his sights on Roderick Strong soon would make sense given he lost the AEW International Championship when we last saw him.

Rush def. Martin Stone

Stone is the former Danny Burch from WWE NXT. He looks a tad different than the last time I saw him years ago and I honestly wouldn't have known it was him if I didn't recognize the name. This was a squash for Rush as it needed to be. Apparently his last match was all the way back at Worlds End in December. How has AEW had nothing for him to do following his fun run in the Continental Classic? Is he going to have direction now that he's back?

AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm def. Anna Jay (Non-Title)

What's the difference between a non-title match an Eliminator match? Should the challenger get a title shot anyway even if they win in a non-title match? I'm not even sure why Jay faced the AEW Women's World Champion considering she lost her last two televised matches (not counting ROH TV) against Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa. It was a good match, but it's impossible to take Jay seriously as a threat to anyone of note at this point.

The Acclaimed def. Grizzled Young Veterans

I'm shocked Max Caster didn't mention Grizzled Young Veterans' time in Schism (that terrible faction from WWE NXT led by Joe Gacy) during his pre-match rap. Despite making several appearances for TNA this year, they're obviously not signed to full-time contracts with them if they were able to appear here. That's why they lost, but I'd love to see AEW lock them down to a deal. I thoroughly enjoyed this and thought it was The Acclaimed's best bout in a while.

AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland def. Claudio Castagnoli

The open challenge gimmick is so lame across all the companies, but AEW abuses it more than anyone else right now. Wasn't MJF vs. Kenny Omega the last time the AEW World Championship was defended on Collision? And that wasn't an impromptu match like this was. Strickland really needs to be positioned properly on AEW programming if this title reign is going to be as successful as it should be. With all of that said, this was a great match, even if the end result was never in question.

Overall Show

I don't know what the viewership will ultimately look like, but this was a bigger Collision than usual if only for Strickland's appearance and title defense. I also really dug Grizzled Young Veterans' AEW debut. Those things made this a thumbs-up show and everything else was solid. I'd love if Collision felt this meaningful more often instead of the Rampage-esque lineups we tend to get week after week.

SEE MORE: Collision Reviews