AEW Collision: Summer Blockbuster Review - June 11, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Kyle Fletcher def. Anthony Bowens

I appreciate that this was a competitive contest with Bowens scoring so much offense, but his singles run so far has been extremely questionable, to say the least. It wasn't long after his return that he suffered his first loss and he hasn't been booked the best since then. Fletcher is clearly headed for another opportunity at the AEW TNT Championship, so the outcome was never in doubt, but they did have a good opener.

Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., AEW TNT Champion Adam Cole, ROH World Champion Bandido, Templario and Brody King Fended off FTR and The Don Callis Family

This segment started off with Atlantis and Atlantis Jr. getting interviewed in the ring by longtime Spanish commentator Carlos Cabrera when they were interrupted by FTR and Stokley Hathaway. FTR already beat Templario and Atlantis Jr. last week, so you'd think they want to set their sights on the AEW World Tag Team Championship instead. Apparently not. The big brawl that ensued felt unnecessary since none it was relevant to what came before it.

AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm def. Julia Hart (Non-Title)

It's comical how little of a threat both Hart and Skye Blue have been to Storm in recent weeks. The booking has been completely one-sided. I'm all for making Storm look strong before her big match at All In with Mercedes Mone, but it shouldn't constantly come at the expense of Hart and Blue. The match was decent albeit inconsequential. Mina Shirakawa coming out afterward to save Storm from Mone only to get laid out by Mone as well was unintentionally funny.

Willow Nightingale, Mark Briscoe and Tomohiro Ishii def. Taya Valkyrie and MxM Collection

Nightingale, Briscoe and Ishii were all members of The Conglomeration at one point, but I'm not referring to them as such because that group has long been dead. I honestly have no idea what purpose this was supposed to serve. Nightingale may be done with The Death Riders, Briscoe is still feuding with them I believe and Ishii is just chilling, so this was rather random. There was nothing wrong with the match itself, but it felt like filler to me.

ROH World Champion Bandido def. The Beast Mortos (Non-Title)

This was a much-needed win for Bandido on AEW TV. I've said before how he's usually utilized as an enhancement talent and it does the ROH World Championship no favors. It still feels like a prop because it's not treated like anything important in AEW, but at least he won on AEW TV for a change. The match itself was enjoyable, which was no surprise considering who was involved.

Thekla def. Queen Aminata

Aminata is obviously a bigger star than Lady Frost (who she faced in her AEW in-ring debut last week), so it made sense for this to last longer, but what didn't make sense was to put Thekla on so late in the four-hour broadcast when the crowd was tired and largely sat on their hands for this. This would've benefited from being shorter regardless, but the right person won.

The Don Callis Family (Josh Alexander, Konosuke Takeshita and Lance Archer) and Hechicero def. Paragon (Roderick Strong, Kyle O'Reilly and AEW TNT Champion Adam Cole) and Daniel Garcia

What's wild is that we got almost the exact same main event during last week's four-hour extravaganza, except with the opposite result. The match wasn't all that different, either. Sure, it was well wrestled, but we've gotten so many multi-man tag team matches with The Don Callis Family on Collision in recent months that it's virtually impossible to care by this point. They then immediately announced a 12-man tag team match with, you guessed it, The Don Callis Family at Grand Slam: Mexico. The madness must end.

Overall Show

There has been very little out of the ordinary about Collision the last two weeks despite the Fyter Fest and Summer Blockbuster branding. I know it depends on what's airing on Thursday nights on TBS and TNT, but if Collision can't air on Saturdays for whatever reason, I'd much prefer Thursday nights over Wednesday nights after Dynamite. It's just too much content, especially when the Collision portion is fairly forgettable. This wasn't an awful episode by any means, but most of it was a whole lot of nothing.

SEE MORE: Collision Reviews