AEW Collision Review - July 27, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Orange Cassidy def. Johnny TV

Man, is Cassidy really that directionless right now that he's being relegated to fighting Johnny TV? No disrespect to the former John Morrison, but his entire AEW/Ring of Honor run has been a joke. These two had a quality contest, but I would've been perfectly content with Cassidy squashing Johnny instead. Willow Nightingale thwarting Taya Valkyrie's interference might indicate a mixed tag team match is coming soon.

Blackpool Combat Club (Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli) def. Top Flight and Brian Cage & ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty in a Three-Way Tag Team Match

Was it explained why Moriarty teamed with Cage instead of someone from Shane Taylor Promotions? They were such a strange team. That said, this did play off of Moriarty beating Yuta for the ROH Pure Championship at Friday's Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view, so I appreciated the attention to detail there. This was a good match, but it was too similar to the multi-team Rampage main event from Friday that also had a lack of stakes.

Hologram def. The Beast Mortos

I can almost guarantee that the sole reason why Mortos beat Komander at Death Before Dishonor was to make him feel like a slight threat to Hologram here. Despite that, the outcome was never in doubt. This was another really fun match from Hologram as he worked wonderfully with Mortos. It'll be interesting to see if there ends up being more to the Hologram character or if he's just another spot-fest guy.

Thunder Rosa def. Maya World

This existed to get Rosa back on track following her recent Lumberjack loss to Deonna Purrazzo. We've seen World before in AEW and/or ROH, but this wasn't about her, so I had no issue with Rosa being on offense for almost all of it. I'm glad it didn't overstay its welcome, either. Rosa would pop up again later on during Battle of the Belts.

The Conglomeration (ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe, Kyle O’Reilly and Tomohiro Ishii) def. Premier Athletes (Tony Nese, Ariya Daivari and Josh Woods)

As I've said before, the Conglomeration nonsense has felt like a lazy way to get these guys in tag team matches on television because they have nothing else of importance going on. Yes, they work well together, but it'd be nice if their matches had some meaning. This was essentially a showcase for the babyface, but it did not need to take them 10 minutes to beat Premier Athletes.

Lance Archer def. Local Athlete

This followed the same formula as the Archer squash from Friday's Rampage where he dragged a dude from backstage to the ring and beat him almost instantly. We never even found out what his opponent's name was. It's been announced that Archer will face Will Ospreay this coming Wednesday on Dynamite and this was supposed to give him more momentum before then.

FTR def. MxM Collection

MxM Collection did well in their ROH debut at Death Before Dishonor, beating Spanish Announce Project on the Zero Hour pre-show. Kudos to them for taking all of 24 hours to debut in AEW as well. FTR needed to win here as they begin their road back to the AEW World Tag Team Championship, but MxM Collection lost nothing in defeat. Needless to say, this was the strongest showing they've ever had together and I enjoyed the outing.

Pac def. Lio Rush

Rush becoming a regular in AEW and ROH again has been an unexpected treat. Pac is owed a shot at the AEW American/International Championship after winning that four-way earlier this month, but it might have to wait until after All In since Ospreay is getting the shot on that show. In the meantime, he'll likely rack up more wins and that's fine by me. This was an entertaining main event.

Overall Show

We were treated to some above-average wrestling on this edition of Collision, but when most of the matches are announced shortly beforehand, you know it's not going to be an important episode. If you watch solely for the wrestling, you might get something out of this show, but if you're looking for some storyline advancement or anything other than action, the two hours probably won't be for you.

SEE MORE: Collision Reviews