https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfcRKqTXnxY
Last week on COLLISION, fans witnessed CM Punk retain his “Real” World Championship over Ricky Starks, in part thanks to Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat having a keen eye for Starks’ cheating, and stepping in when referee Stephon Smith was knocked out of commission. Still, it didn’t save Steamboat from getting attacked by Ricky after the match, of course after Punk had already left the ring, necessitating Punk to come in with chair in hand to chase the 2023 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament winner away.
In addition, FTR retained their AEW World Tag Team Championship over Big Bill and Brian Cage in a hard-fought battle while Kris Statlander bested Mercedes Martinez in their TBS Championship clash only to fall victim to an assault from both Martinez and Diamante! The House of Black retained their World Trios Champions titles, Samoa Joe challenged CM Punk to meet him at ALL IN: LONDON, and Jay White was back in action as well!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/KxvTVdEMUkg
This week all of those champions will be in action once again, six of them in the same match, as The House of Black defends their AEW World Trios Championship against the team collectively known as CMFTR! On top of that, TBS Champion Kris Statlander will team up with Willow Nightingale to face Mercedes and Diamante in tag team action, and speaking of tag teams, The Acclaimed will be back in the mix this Saturday night when COLLISION comes to Greensboro, NC and the historic Greensboro Coliseum! The show begins at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT, as well as at AEWPlus.com for AEW’s international fans, so make it a point to visit the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from this week’s episodes of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest edition of CONTROL CENTER, and so much more!
AEW WORLD TRIOS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH…
The House of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews, & Malakai Black)
vs.
CMFTR (AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR & CM Punk)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/XLDUcfofd7w
It was far from an off-week for all the men involved in this bout as all six defended their titles on COLLISION. The House of Black, unarguably, had the easiest night of them all, and that’s meant as no slight to Action Andretti, Lee Johnson, or Darius Martin, it’s just that they were a trio fighting in their first outing together, and while they pushed The House for nine minutes, ultimately they were left decimated by Brody, Buddy, and Malakai. Now the CMFTR side of this coin, they put in 35 minutes of ring time between their two respective matches:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/MGOExmlWdlk
Now Dax and Cash may have been facing a team rather inexperienced in working together, but who have been quite the destructive force in their limited outings as a pair. Big Bill and Brian Cage ran the table on the Eliminator Battle Royale to earn this shot, and that was after several impressive outings in the Blind Eliminator Tag Team Tournament that earned MJF and Adam Cole their title opportunity. So while they may have successfully defended their AEW World Tag Team Championship against Big Bill and Brian Cage, Dax and Cash took quite a beating from the monsters in the process, and that was after facing MJF and Cole the week prior, going nearly an hour with Juice and Jay White two weeks before that, and nearly thirty minutes with that BULLET CLUB GOLD duo the week before that. Suffice it to say FTR has been putting in the work since the debut of COLLISION, as well as making their presence known on DYNAMITE several times, and thus they are feeling it coming into this Trios bout.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/L675xZinpt0
And the same could be said for their partner, the self-proclaimed “Real” World Champion, CM Punk. Coming off a tremendous victory over Ricky Starks in which he put in 22 minutes of ring time, Punk has to walk around knowing what happened to Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat in the aftermath of the match, a match he was responsible for bringing Steamboat into in the first place. On top of that, though he may have been off the week prior, two weeks earlier he and Darby Allin were topped by Ricky Starks and Christian Cage, the week before that he lost in the finals of The Owen Hart Foundation Tournament to Ricky Starks, and the week before that he took an absolute beating from Samoa Joe en route to squeaking out a win over the ROH World TV Champion. So yeah, Punk is feeling it too coming into this Trios Championship contest.
Perhaps that is where CMFTR is most dangerous, when they are worn out, tired, and exhausted from their fights, perhaps that is where they are most likely to risk it all to end this House of Black reign, but that is what they will have to do in order to have hope in winning. Brody King, Buddy Matthews, and Malakai Black have far more experience working as a trio, and their seven championship defenses are testament to that resume. In fact, in all of AEW, The Elite and Death Triangle are the only active threesomes with more matches under their proverbial belt, and no active trio has more victories, though The House and Elite are tied with 17 wins each. So it is going to take every ounce of fight CMFTR has left in their body after these last two grueling months if they hope to dethrone The House of Black and head into Wembley Stadium holding the AEW World Trios Championship Titles.
Of course, both Punk and FTR have other ALL IN: LONDON issues to worry about, FTR with an officially scheduled World Tag Team Championship match against The Young Bucks and CM Punk with a challenge laid out by ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe, so they’ve already got plenty to worry about without even adding these championship titles to their plate! Should they win, would these six men pull double duty at Wembley as MJF and Adam Cole appear set to do? And even if they do not win, the question remains who will step up to fight The House of Black should they too make the excursion on August 27th?
TAG TEAM CONTEST…
TBS Champion Kris Statlander & Willow Nightingale
vs.
Diamante & Mercedes Martinez
https://www.youtube.com/embed/jSJiEZoQ2dU
Perhaps Diamante took to heart the words Athena shared with her after their ROH World Championship fight, telling her fallen foe that she has what it takes, but she’s missing something, and needed to step it up to reach championship level. It certainly seems likely given that, just two days later, Diamante joined Mercedes Martinez in assaulting TBS Champion Kris Statlander following her title victory over “The OG Badass”.
Prior to that moment, there was little common ground between the women other than both had multiple losses to Kris Statlander on their resume, and that both had fallen to Athena when the ROH Women’s World Championship was at stake. Well after the events that took place following Mercedes loss to Stat, these two women can add another commonality, an enemy named Willow Nightingale!
Now both are familiar with the 2023 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament winner; her and Diamante have split a pair of singles matches in AEW while Mercedes bested Willow for the Interim ROH Women’s World Championship at SUPERCARD OF HONOR 2022. But now “The Babe with the Power”, after her epic collision with Athena at DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR 2023, is primed to prove that she’s a dominating force in AEW, and siding up with Kris Statlander in this confrontation is quite the way to do just that.
Two top shelf athletes from Long Island facing two of the baddest women in pro wrestling today; it goes down this Saturday night on COLLISION and will no play a part in the future of the TBS Championship!
THE ACCLAIMED ARE BACK!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/bIX-eDQaIig
With Daddy Ass leaving his boots in the ring and apparently retiring from in-ring competition, The Acclaimed of Anthony Bowens and Max Caster will be stepping back into tag team action this Saturday night on COLLISION! As former AEW World Tag Team Champions, they know what it takes to get back to the top of the division, and although they’ve not been in a traditional tag team bout since the March 25th edition of RAMPAGE, they still have the most victories of any team in All Elite history with 54, and with 66 tag matches they’ve fought in more tag team bouts than any team in AEW history.
Will this Saturday mark the start of another climb towards the World Tag Team Championship for The Acclaimed? Or will their time spent in trios competition leave them a little out of practice from working the game from this angle.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LB_HamFqslI
AEW swings into Greensboro, NC and the historic Greensboro Coliseum for an all-new COLLISION featuring one massive AEW World Trios Championship bout pitting The House of Black against CMFTR, a tag team grudge match with TBS Champion Kris Statlander being joined by Willow Nightingale to face Mercedes Martinez and Diamante, and the return of The Acclaimed to tag team action! The night kicks off at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT, as well as at AEWPlus.com for AEW’s international fans, so be sure to visit the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from last week’s COLLISION, this week’s episodes of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest edition of CONTROL CENTER, and so much more!
