AEW Collision Preview for April 5, 2025

DYNASTY 2025 is 24 hours away and All Elite Wrestling is set for the final night of action before Sunday's pay-per-view extravaganza! After a raucous DYNAMITE this past Wednesday night, it's time for COLLISION to send us off to Philadelphia and the Liacouras Center with a bang! Tonight we shall see a sneak preview of what's to come on Sunday night as TBS Champion Mercedes Moné teams with Harley Cameron to fight ROH Women’s World Champion Athena and Julia Hart and FTR's Cash Wheeler steps into a rare singles match to take on “The Bastard” PAC! In addition, Speedball Mike Bailey takes on LFI's Dralistico while Top Flight and CRU try to settle their score, and Powerhouse Hobbs teams up with Tomohiro Ishii to throw down with The Don Callis Family!

COLLISION comes to you tonight on TNT, as well as streaming on MAX, beginning at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT, and around the world via AEW PLUS! Before the show gets underway be sure to visit AEW's official YouTube channel to catch-up on highlights from the most recent DYNAMITE, previous editions of COLLISION, and all the other action leading us to DYNASTY 2025 tomorrow night! After the conclusion of the pay-per-view, we are off to Baltimore for two special events! First, on Tuesday April 8th, join the stars of AEW at Jimmy's Famous Seafood for a Meet & Feast with Adam Cole, Harley Cameron, and Mark Briscoe to benefit Kulture City. Then on Wednesday, come with us to the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena to experience the aftermath of DYNASTY 2025!

TAG TEAM BATTLE...

Don Callis Family (Konosuke Takeshita & Kyle Fletcher) vs. 

Powerhouse Hobbs & Tomohiro Ishii

Powerhouse Hobbs and The Don Callis Family have been at each other's throats for months now, most recently on last week's edition of DYNAMITE when the former TNT Champion barreled through Mark Davis in two-and-a-half minutes. It was a dominant victory for sure, but it doesn't mean Hobbs is done with The DCF or its proprietor, not by a long shot. That mission to decimate The Don Callis Family continues tonight in tag team form when “The Alpha” Konosuke Takeshita and “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher step into the ring with Hobbs and another man who has his issues with “The Alpha”: “The Stone Pitbull” Tomohiro Ishii!

Ishii went to battle with Takeshita over both the AEW International Championship and NEVER Openweight Championship at WRESTLE DYNASTY 2025, and would love nothing more than to get himself back into the running for another opportunity at the NEVER championship Takeshita still holds to bring it back to New Japan Pro Wrestling. With that in mind, Ishii is aligning with Powerhouse Hobbs tonight for the first-time ever to take the fight to The Don Callis Family! This may be the best time for Hobbs and Ishii to strike. Both Takeshita and Fletcher are scheduled to participate in the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Men's Tournament which means their attention may be focused somewhere other than this match. Either way, these are four absolute hosses stepping into tag team battle on COLLISION and they are going to tear each other apart looking to score that victory!

A DYNASTY PREVIEW...

AEW World Trios Champion PAC vs. Cash Wheeler

Tensions are at an all-time high within Rated FTR, particularly as it pertains to the FTR portion of that trio, Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood. It started with Dax walking out on his tag partner and “The Rated R Superstar” after Cope lost to Jon Moxley in their AEW World Championship Street Fight, but it seemed the three of them got on the same page to challenge for the World Trios Title this Sunday when they sat down together with Tony Schiavone. That all fell apart again last Saturday night in the aftermath of Dax's loss to Wheeler Yuta when he shoved Cash Wheeler to the mat thinking he was a member of AEW security trying to restrain Dax when he went after Senior Referee Paul Turner. Listening to the words each man spoke on DYNAMITE, as captured in the video embedded above, it's clear they need to find a way back on the same page to function tomorrow night in their championship challenge. 

Perhaps Cash scoring a victory over “The Bastard” PAC tonight can help towards that goal, building on the momentum “The Rated R Superstar” Cope began with his DYNAMITE win over Claudio Castagnoli. However, unlike his tag partner Dax, Cash's singles experience in All Elite Wrestling has been limited to just three matches and it has been nearly two years since the last of those. In contrast, PAC is 41-12-2 in singles competition with a 2-0 record thus far in 2025. The experience edge in this scenario weighs heavily in his favor, but Cash Wheeler is fighting with a point to prove against The Death Riders and with a very specific end game in mind for DYNASTY 2025. He intends to leave Philadelphia as part of the new World Trios Championship unit, and defeating “The Bastard” here tonight will go a long way to showing the champions the threat they've got on their hands!

TAG TEAM GRUDGE MATCH...

CRU (Action Andretti & Lio Rush) vs. Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin)

In the closing weeks of 2024 Top Flight faced Action Andretti and Lio Rush on COLLISION in a World Tag Title #1 Contenders battle. Action and Lio, not yet know as CRU, picked up the win and would move on to unsuccessfully challenge Private Party for the titles on the first COLLISION of 2025. The tensions between Dante, Darius, Action, and Lio had been mounting for weeks prior to that, even driving a bit of a wedge between the Martin brothers in the process. Initially the rivalry seemed more competitive but it has becoming increasingly volatile over the year, with CRU delivering a vicious assault to Top Flight and AR Fox after their World Trios Championship loss to The Death Riders. Action and Lio were cut off by AR Fox from repeating that attack after Top Flight's battle with The Learning Tree last week, leading to tonight's rematch between the four former allies!

Can Top Flight even the score with CRU after suffering that beating last week at the hands of Big Bill and Bryan Keith, or will this be another step towards another title bid for Action Andretti and Lio Rush?

ONE-ON-ONE...

Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Dralistico

***RICOCHET ON COMMENTARY***

In just a few short weeks Speedball Mike Bailey has made a tremendous impact on the landscape of All Elite Wrestling! He came in as a surprise entrant in the DYNASTY 2024 International Championship Eliminator Tournament and bested LFI's The Beast Mortos on the March 12th DYNAMITE to advance to the Four-Way Finals the following week. Unfortunately that contest didn't go quite as Bailey may have hoped thanks to Ricochet's machinations. How the pinfall situation played out meant both Speedball and Ricochet were awarded the victory and thus AEW International Champion Kenny Omega will have to face both men this Sunday night in Philadelphia.

However, before Speedball can focus on that task, he's got to deal with another of LFI's lethal components: Dralistico! There's no doubt The Beast Mortos will be at ringside for this one, but will he play a role in affecting the outcome, or can Speedball overcome those odds to continue building momentum for DYNASTY 2025? There's also a little matter of Ricochet joining the commentary table for this bout, and the potential for his involvement in the contest as well. Speedball is certainly fighting from behind the 8-ball with this one...

OWEN HART FOUNDATION TOURNAMENT PREVIEW...

TBS Champion Mercedes Moné & Harley Cameron vs. ROH Women’s World Champion Athena & Julia Hart

The world bore witness to the unveiling of the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament brackets this past Wednesday night on DYNAMITE, and saw just who each competitor would be paired with in the  opening Quarterfinal round. We also learned that some of those initial battles would take place tomorrow night at DYNASTY 2025, including the first-ever one-on-one bout between TBS Champion Mercedes Moné and former TBS Champion Julia Hart. Before we get to that fateful contest on Sunday, we've got ourselves a battle of strange bedfellows tonight on COLLISION when Moné teams with Harley Cameron, the woman she fought at GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA, to face Hart and ROH Women's World Champion Athena!

It's a milestone moment in so many ways; not only does this put Mercedes and Julie in the ring with each other for the first time before their Owen clash, it also puts “The CEO” in the ring with “The Fallen Goddess” Athena for the first time in All Elite Wrestling, as well as the first time in over six years! As if that wasn't enough, it heralds Athena's return to the AEW stage for the first time since BATTLE OF THE BELTS X one year ago, her first time fighting on COLLISION, her first time fighting Harley Cameron, and her first time sharing the ring with Julia Hart. It's a truly monumental match on many levels, and but a herald of the possibilities to come in both the Quarter- and Semifinals!

THE OPEN CHALLENGES CONTINUE...

Max Caster is relentless; no matter what happens or who steps out through the tunnels to answer the call, “The Best Wrestler Alive” ™ continues to lay out his Open Challenges to the AEW locker room! It's our understanding that “Platinum” Max will be in the house tonight on COLLISION, and has another one planned for Peoria! Things didn't work out so well for Caster last time he opened his mouth, and that wasn't even inside the squared circle, but perhaps things will go better for him this time...if he even makes it out to the ring.

COLLISION is the last stop on the road to DYNASTY 2025 and it's coming your way tonight on TNT, as well as streaming on MAX, beginning at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT, and around the world via AEW PLUS! In a preview of the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Women's Tournament that kicks off Sunday, TBS Champion Mercedes Moné and Harley Cameron take on ROH Women’s World Champion Athena and Julia Hart! Plus, Cash Wheeler competes in a rare singles match against “The Bastard” PAC, Speedball Mike Bailey prepares for his AEW International Championship Match with a fight against LFI's Dralistico, Top Flight looks to settle their grudge with CRU in a tag team battle, and Powerhouse Hobbs unites with Tomohiro Ishii to face The Don Callis Family!

Prior to the show kicking off, make a point to drop in on AEW's official YouTube channel to watch highlights from recent episodes of DYNAMITE and COLLISION, as well as all the other highlights on our path to DYNASTY 2025 Sunday night! Following our Philadelphia excursion, we head to Baltimore for two special events! The first takes place on Tuesday April 8th  at Jimmy's Famous Seafood where Mark Briscoe, Adam Cole, and Harley Cameron will be on-hand for a Meet & Feast to benefit Kulture City. The second goes down Wednesday night at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena when DYNAMITE brings the fallout of DYNASTY 2025 to TBS and MAX!