Daily’s Place – Jacksonville, FL
Commentary – Tony Schiavone, Nigel McGuiness
Swerve Strickland comes out with Prince Nana for his first promo since becoming World Heavyweight Champion.
This is kind of what we should have got to start Dynamite coming off the back of the Dynasty PPV but instead it was Swerve having a meaningless match on but nonetheless here we are.
Prince Nana after doing his awesome dance gives a great introduction for Swerve and hands him the mic.
Swerve gives a run down of the weeks goings on in AEW, he calls The Elite beating up Tony Kahn a “Bitch Move”
Swerve brings up his daughter being proud of him for winning the AEW World Title but she said “Dad I don’t feel like I dont know you anymore”
He said that cut him deep, he said all the missed Birthdays and occasions he wants to blaze a trail so that him winning the AEW Title was all worth it.
Swerve wants to be a fighting champion and issues a challenge for tonight, Claudio Castagnoli answers the call, it will be Claudio Castagnoli vs Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Heavyweight Title.
Tony Schiavone and Nigel McGuiness announce on commentary that Tony Kahn has suffered multiple neck injuries from the attack on Dynamite last week from the Elite and he can’t travel so he is running AEW from Jacksonville.
Unified Trios Championship Match
Jay White and The Gunns vs Top Flight and Acrion Andretti
Top Flight and Andretti were back to operating at 100mph, diving all over the place like gymnasts and taking crazy high risks.
Jay White and The Gunns did a good job of playing the heels, tagging in and out and bending the rules in this match.
Action Andretti used all his tricks to get the best of Jay White but at the end of this match Jay caught him and hit the Bladerunner to win the contest.
Winner – Jay White and The Gunns
The Bang Bang Gang have really good entrance music, it suits them, I’m not sure why they don’t have more of a prominent role on Dynamite.
Singles Match
Rey Fenix vs The Beast Mortos
Rey Fenix hasn’t been seen on the show in quite some time so this was his first one back.
The Beast Mortos has an insane looking mask, he used to be call Black Taurus last time I seen him and is by far the thickest Luchadores on the roster.
These guys did some crazy stuff in this match including Fenix walking on the head of Mortos’s.
Mortos got his own back by spearing Fenix in mid air off the ropes.
Fenix dived over the ropes to the outside in some crazy corkscrew dive which looked super impressive.
Mortos hit Fenix with a move Tony Schiavone called the leaf blower, devastating and should end the contest but it didn’t.
Lots of near falls in this match from both men but it was Fenix that got the pin after a reversal into a sneaky pin.
I would like to see more of Mortos, he is very unique looking with his mask and build and stands out from the rest of the Luchadores.
Winner – Rey Fenix
Orange Cassidy is interviewed backstage and is worried about Chuck Taylor fighting Trent Beretta in the parking lot tonight, Kris Statlander comes in and takes Cassidy away.
I find this is something AEW have started doing where they have stories and segments that are on Rampage which now comes on directly after Collision, I’m not sure why they don’t just combined the shows into one
Singles Match
Rush vs Martin Stone
Rush hasn’t been on the show since December, this happens a lot in AEW where guys just disappear then come back.
Now it appears Rush is back to having matches against enhancement talent to get him back up again.
That is the case here with Martin Stone who received no entrance was beat in quick fashion.
The Bull Horns ended the match with Rush hitting his running drop kick.
Winner – Rush
Rush beat up Mark Stone a bit more after the match and hit him with another Bill Horns with him leaving with a massive smirk on his face.
Serena Deeb is interviewed backstage, she says it’s now and never for her and she is coming for Toni Storm’s AEW Women’s World Championship.
I don’t think this feud between Storm and Deeb is going to work, Storm’s character is so over the top and is all character where as Deeb is kinda bland as far as a character is concerned and she is basically a wrestler who claims she is the best.
I think Storm needs someone to counter her with a lot of personalty but so far she hasn’t came up against that.
Singles Match
“Timeless” Toni Storm (with Mariah May and Luther) vs Anna Jay
Anna Jay for a number of weeks has been involved with Storm and Mariah May. They have to do something more with her than just coming out and have her lose all the time.
Storm used her ass to smash it into the face of Anna Jay, she ran off the rope and hit her again knocking her out the ring onto Mariah May, Storm was concerned that she had hurt her protégé.
I liked Storm using an old school move, she used the “Perfect Plex” made famous by the late great Curt Hennig.
Anna Jay locked in the “Queenslayer” submission in the middle of the ring with Storm escaping and then hit her running hip attack in the corner followed by “Storm Zero” for the win.
Winner – Toni Storm
Chuck Taylor is seen getting ready backstage for his parking lot fight with Trent Beretta, he holds Orange Cassidy’s dog and tells him to not get involved in his fight tonight and that he needs to do it himself.
Tag Team Match
Grizzled Young Veterans vs The Acclaimed
This is my first time seeing “The Grizzled Young Veterans” I’m not sure what they are suppose to be, Soccer Hooligans? There shirts looks very similar to LIverpool FC.
The Grizzled Young Veterans wore Max Caster down making tags in and out and keeping him in their corner.
Caster finally made the hot tag to Bowens who cleaned house, Caster came back in and they played all the hits including the hilarious “Scissor me Timbers” which didn’t get the job done.
The Grizzled Young Veterans did a move where Zack Gibson held Bowens on the ropes with his knees with James Drake dived from one corner to the other with the drop kick, this also didn’t get the job done but looked really impressive.
The Grizzled Young Veterans pushed The Acclaimed to their limits in this one but couldn’t get the win with The Acclaimed taking this one out in a hard fought contest.
I get the feeling this isn’t the last we will see of The Grizzled Young Veterans as this was a close contest and look like they can add to the tag division.
Winner – The Acclaimed
Shibata is backstage and is using his Google Translator to answer questions, he said he is going to chop down the learning tree Chris Jericho and take his FTW World Championship but will take on Shane Taylor alone first.
Daniel Garcia comes in the scene and says he has nothing but respect for Shibata and convinces Shibata to tag with him to face Shane Taylor Promotions in a tag match later tonight.
Once again this is another match and segment that will appear on Rampage later.
AEW World Championship Match
Swerve Strickland (c) (with Prince Nana) vs Claudio Castagnoli
Strickland has been nothing but a fighting champion since winning the World Championship wrestling pretty on every show.
An interesting blend of styles made this one an entertaining contest.
Swerve nodded his hat to the late great Eddie Guerrero but doing neck breakers in the style of the Three Amigos. Nice touch.
These guys battled it out all over the ring and on the outside, Swerve used Daily’s Place unique staging to dive off and backflip onto Castagnoli, he took him inside the ring and hit a 450 splash which didn’t put Castagnoli away.
Swerve hit the Swerve Stomp but Castagnoli amazingly kicked out.
Swerve was stunned and went for his side kick but Castagnoli reversed it and turned it into the Big Swing and then the Sharpshooter with Swerve escaping but Castagnoli then put Swerve into a crossface with Swerve also escaping.
Swerve went for another Stomp off the top rope but landed on Castagnoli’s shoulder who then dropped him with a sick looking European uppercut with Swerve narrowly escaping the pin.
Swerve finally hit a mini stomp followed by his House Call sidekick to finally put Castagnoli away in a great match.
Winner – Swerve Strickland
Kev’s thoughts –
For the second week in a row there was more effort put into Collision, last week was the go home show before the Dynasty PPV and I expected AEW to go back to where they where prior but tonight they started the show with The World Champion Swerve Strickland and ended the show with him.
Don’t get me wrong they are still a long way from the show being must see but from where they were before with the show being unwatchable to what was on display tonight it’s an improvement.
Swerve Strickland, Toni Storm, The Acclaimed
And The Bang Bang are all hot commodities and appeared on this, this consistency is what AEW sorely needs to continue to do if they have any chance of improving the product.
