AEW Collision Review - July 29, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Andrade El Idolo def. AEW World Trios Champion Buddy Matthews in a Ladder Match to Reclaim His Mask

Ladder matches have been done to death in WWE and AEW in recent years to the point where it's hard to get excited about them, especially when the storyline surrounding Andrade's mask hasn't been overly interesting. That said, this was very entertaining, they delivered some crazy spots, and the crowd was hot for it. I'd say this was the blow-off to Andrade's feud with House of Black, but I assume we're still headed toward him finding two partners to challenge them for the AEW World Trios Championship.

Darby Allin def. Minoru Suzuki

Not only was this match not advertised in advance, Allin wasn't advertised to make an appearance period. He just randomly emerged to issue an open challenge and Suzuki accepted. It was a clever way of trying to make the show feel spontaneous, like anything can happen at any given time. AEW needs to do more of that. The match itself was excellent. Granted, I can't remember the last singles match Suzuki won in AEW, but it was a cool clash of styles and it gave Allin a rebound win following his loss to Swerve Strickland on Wednesday's Dynamite.

ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe def. Gravity (Non-Title)

Joe really needs to ditch the ROH TV title so he can appear on Collision more consistently. The man is a treasure. Gravity's been making the rounds lately between ROH TV, Death Before Dishonor, Dynamite and now Collision. I had no desire to see a competitive contest between the two because the average viewer has been given no reason to care about Gravity, so I'm glad Joe essentially squashed him. Him mocking Gravity's silly walk got a big pop from the crowd.

Ricky Starks Confronted CM Punk

We got a small taste of Punk and Starks on the mic last week before they were interrupted and we got much more of it here. Punk mentioned wrestling at Wembley Stadium for All In before pulling out the AEW World Championship belt he never lost out of the bag he's been carrying around since last month. He showed some heelish tendencies when he dropped his classic "Straightedge means I'm better than you" line but was back in babyface mode when Starks came out. It's an interesting dynamic, to say the least. They'll face off next week for what Punk is calling the "real" world championship and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat will serve as the special guest referee.

Bullet Club Gold (Juice Robinson and The Gunns) def. AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo, Darius Martin and Action Andretti

Robinson and Jay White beat Martin and Andretti last week, so this was just a slight variation of that match with Vikingo and The Gunns thrown into the mix. White didn't appear here, but there was a standee of him at ringside and that got a good laugh out of me. They had a well-wrestled affair and it had a few fun moments, which is par for the course with Vikingo matches. Bullet Club Gold gaining momentum makes sense.

Mercedes Martinez def. Kiera Hogan

This was weird. Martinez is a Connecticut native, so she was obviously going to be cheered by this crowd, but she was supposed to be the heel here? I honestly didn't know that until she started beating Hogan up afterward. The match itself was solid and I appreciate them getting some time, but I don't blame the crowd for being quiet because they haven't been on television in ages. Martinez attacking Kris Statlander sets her up as the next challenger to the AEW TBS Championship.

AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR def. AEW World Champion MJF and Adam Cole

This was the terrific main event I was hoping for out of these teams. The crowd was into everything they did and the duo of Cole and MJF were super over. It helped that there was an actual chance they could take the titles, but alas, it didn't happen. Still, there were several suspenseful nearfalls and the final few minutes were fantastic. MJF sacrificing himself for Cole and taking the clean loss was certainly a surprise. Neither of them turned on the other afterward, so I'm intrigued by what comes next. I wouldn't complain if they kept this going a little longer, but I also understand they have two big pay-per-views to build to.

Overall Show

This show was a blast to attend live and just a blast in general. Collision continues to be my favorite wrestling show weekly. I was worried when a few matches were announced at the last minute and had zero storyline significance (Joe vs. Gravity, Martinez vs. Hogan), but everything worked out and the two hours flew by per usual. Between the wild Ladder match, Allin vs. Suzuki, the Punk vs. Starks setup, and the electric tag title main event, this was an easy thumbs-up episode.

SEE MORE: Collision Reviews