In less than twenty-four hours, the doors of Wembley Stadium will open up and ALL IN: LONDON 2024 will begin! It is unquestionably the biggest night of All Elite Wrestling's year, but before we get to those festivities, there is one final night of business to attend to and that's COLLISION! Coming to you from Cardiff, Wales and the Utilita Arena, we've got two hours of the best wrestling on the planet, including a Trios contest with a direct impact on the London Ladder Match going down on Sunday. It will be Lio Rush and Top Flight taking on Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and “The Bastard” PAC with the winner taking the fourth spot in that Ladder Match for the AEW World Trios Championship! But that's not the only trios match on tap, we will also see The Conglomeration configuration of Orange Cassidy, Kyle O'Reilly, and ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe take on the Undisputed Kingdom, plus HOOK faces “The Redwood” Big Bill ahead of his FTW Title clash with “The Learning Tree” Chris Jericho, Jay Lethal fights Katsuyori Shibata for the very first time, and Jeff Jarrett will also be in action! We will also see CMLL World Women's Champion Willow Nightingale take on Harley Cameron in singles competition, while Kris Statlander and Stokely Hathaway engage in a mixed tag bout to prepare for their ZERO HOUR clash with Willow and Tomohiro Ishii!
COLLISION begins at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TNT, or click here for more information on how to watch in your area around the world, so be sure to hit up the official AEW YouTube channel to watch highlights from DYNAMITE, COLLISION, RAMPAGE, and so much more! Then it's all about Wembley Stadium and ALL IN: LONDON 2024 starting at 6pm BST/1pm ET/10am PT, with the ZERO HOUR getting under way two hours prior! After the conclusion of this PPV extravaganza the fight continues with DYNAMITE in Champaign, IL on August 28th, our first time back since December 2019!
TRIOS MATCH...
The Conglomeration (ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe, Kyle O'Reilly, & Orange Cassidy)
vs.
Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, & Roderick Strong)
On Sunday night a slew of men will enter the Casino Gauntlet in hopes of earning a guaranteed World Title opportunity. We know that Orange Cassidy is in the prime position after earning #1 with that victory over Kyle O'Reilly and Roderick Strong, and we've also heard Mark Briscoe, Kyle O'Reilly, and Roderick Strong state they'll be involved in the Gauntlet should their number actually get pulled. Just based on the experiences of Roderick Strong with the FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 Casino Gauntlet, we know it's a real possibility that a wrestler scheduled to participate in the match may not even make it out to the ring if the match ends before their entrance, hence why OC's spot is such a crucial draw and why the #2 entrant is also in an extremely advantageous position.
Before these men walk into that match on Sunday, they're going to clash tonight on COLLISION in this Trios bout! As a whole Undisputed Kingdom has been a thorn in the side of all three of their opponents, so getting a win over Taven, Bennett, and Strong before the Casino Gauntlet would be crucial!
SNAPPING A BRANCH...
HOOK vs. “The Redwood” Big Bill
On Sunday night “The Cold Hearted Handsome Devil” will get his opportunity to reclaim the FTW Championship from “The Learning Tree” Chris Jericho, and become the only 3-Time holder of that title in its history. However, before he gets to London, HOOK has to contend with a sevenfoot problem known as “The Redwood”.
Now these men are not unfamiliar with one another, they had their share of run-ins with one another back in 2023, but that feels like a lifetime ago and each man has found their paths twisting in unexpected ways. HOOK could never have predicted that he'd end up standing side-by-side with two peerless fighters in Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata, men who actually treated him like a peer rather than a protégé, nor that he'd be doing so while fighting an icon like Chris Jericho, much less doing so while Jericho paraded around with the FTW Championship his father created.
Big Bill couldn't possibly have foreseen that his path from those initial fights with HOOK would lead him under the canopy of Chris Jericho's learning tree, or that he'd be directly responsible for insuring Jericho retained the FTW Championship against Shibata. Jericho surrounding himself with individuals who bolster his ego is nothing new, he's been doing it since the very first DYNAMITE with the formation of The Inner Circle, but this feels different. Unlike The Inner Circle or J.A.S., Big Bill and Bryan Keith have gone all in (no pun intended) on their support for Jericho and seem to expect nothing in return save for absorbing some of his extensive knowledge. They ask nothing in return from Jericho, they expect nothing, yet are willing to fight in the man's name without question.
That is where we are today on the eve of ALL IN: LONDON 2024, and Big Bill is set to soften up HOOK before Jericho meets him at Wembley Stadium. This feels like a situation where the win-loss isn't as important to “The Learning Tree” as seeing his “Redwood” put a beating on HOOK before Sunday night to make him easier pickings!
WILD CARD LONDON LADDER MATCH...
***WINNER EARNS 4TH SPOT IN TRIOS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH***
Lio Rush & Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin) vs.
“The Bastard” PAC & Blackpool Combat Club (Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta)
With all the chaos surrounding the Unified World Trios Championship as a result of Jay White's injury, Interim EVP Christopher Daniels was forced to strip Bang Bang Gang of the the titles, leading to new ROH World Six-Man Champions crowned in Dustin Rhodes and The Von Erichs, and new AEW World Trios Champions coming to pass in The Patriarchy. Yet even with the crowning of new AEW Trios champions, the chaos has not abated, and it is pretty much all the doing of “The Patriarch” Christian Cage.
Months back, after The House of Black defeated The Gunns and Juice Robinson in a trios match, they put themselves in a prime position to challenge Bang Bang Gang for the Trios Championship. The problem that reared its ugly head was Christian Cage, Killswitch, and Nick Wayne assaulting an already injured Buddy Matthews backstage, thus robbing the House of their third man for an unknown period of time.
There was also the issue of Juice Robinson, in the absence of Jay White, masquerading as the third man in the championship team despite not being the BBG member who physically won the title. The Gunns hoped that Juice would be allowed to just slide into Jay's spot without anyone saying a word, but AEW management learned that lesson when they allowed MJF to hold onto the ROH World Tag Titles in the wake of Adam Cole's injury, thus the necessity of stripping BBG.
In recognition of how unfortunate the situation was for Austin and Colten, they were at least given the opportunity to win them back in a match with The Patriarchy on the July 20th COLLISION. Unfortunately Christian Cage's ilk were the victorious unit there, but the oh-so-gracious Christian Cage offered Bang Bang Gang another chance to earn a shot by facing The House of Black following Buddy Matthews' surprising return to the ring. The only caveat was Christian himself would serve as the special guest referee for the match, and after letting the two units wear each other out for sixteen minutes, he decided to just take them all out himself and the match was ruled a no contest. “The Patriarch” had to have been operating under the assumption that this means there was no #1 Contender for the AEW World Trios Titles, but instead a London Ladders Match was made pitting The Patriarchy against House of Black, Bang Bang Gang, and a third challenger to be determined tonight on COLLISION!
That brings us to tonight and the first-time trio of Lio Rush and Top Flight taking on another newborn trio in PAC, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta! Full transparency, while neither of this units has ever fought as a trio before, it's not as if they are strangers to one another. Lio Rush spent several months in 2021 serving as a partner and mentor to Dante Martin while his brother was out with an injury, and heading into FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 the two men teamed up with Mark Briscoe for trios action on COLLISION. With Lio's return to the AEW stage these last couple months, he's rekindled that relationship with Dante Martin, but now it also encompasses brother Darius as well as Action Andretti, and they've come together with the intentions of dominating tag team and trios competition in whatever permutation of their group they choose.
As for the Blackpool Combat Club members and PAC, their history is a little more complicated as “The Bastard” has served as foe to both Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta, specifically falling to Castagnoli in their ROH World Championship at DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR 2023, but also being the man responsible for eliminating Claudio from the 2024 Owen Hart Men's Tournament and PAC winning the Global Glory Four Way that included Castagnoli to earn himself a match with the winner of MJF/Will Ospreay at ALL OUT 2024. Yet just days before that ROH World Championship fight, one that was actually tagged for Mark Briscoe, an injury opened the door for “The Bastard” to step in, PAC stood side-by-side with Blackpool Combat Club and Konosuke Takeshita to fight The Golden Elite inside Blood & Guts. So there is a history of fighting together under extreme circumstances, and that possibility is on the horizon once more should they win this contest and move on to London Ladders at ALL IN: LONDON this Sunday.
Which trio will be able to make the most of this opportunity with just twenty-four hours to go before AEW's biggest event of the year? We will find out tonight when COLLISION comes your way from the Utilita Arena in Cardiff!
ONE-ON-ONE...
CMLL World Women's Champion Willow Nightingale vs. The Outcasts' Harley Cameron
Tomorrow during the ZERO HOUR, Willow Nightingale steps into the ring alongside “The Stone Pitbull” Tomohiro Ishii to take on Stokely Hathaway and her former best friend Kris Statlander, but before she walks into Wembley, the CMLL World Women's Champion will be in action on COLLISION against Harley Cameron! This is actually a rematch of Harley's very first match in All Elite Wrestling on the August 2, 2022 edition of DARK, and both women have come quite far in their careers since then. Willow has captured the TBS Championship, the NJPW STRONG Women's Championship, and now the CMLL World Women's Title since their last encounter while Harley, having very limited experience at that point in 2022, has actually grown into quite a strong competitor inside the squared circle, but her affiliation with Saraya (and possibly her own erratic behavior) has been a mixed bag. While Harley's gotten some very serious competition, matches with Britt Baker, Mariah May, Toni Storm, and Nyla Rose to name a few, and picked up a great deal of experience along the way, she hasn't scored victories to make an impact on the division.
That could change tonight on COLLISION as a victory could put Harley into a challenger position as it pertains to Willow's CMLL title, should she walk out of ALL OUT 2024 with it still in her possession. We know that Nightingale and Statlander have a date in Chicago that night with the title on the line, but that doesn't mean Harley can't slide in their and make some waves beforehand!
ONE-ON-ONE...
“The Last Outlaw” Jeff Jarrett vs. Ariya Daivari
Jeff Jarrett has had his issues with Hangman Page as of late, he's also been a bit engaged with Bryan Danielson and wanting to see “The American Dragon” operating at his peak against Swerve Strickland tomorrow at ALL IN: LONDON 2024. Tonight though, he better have his head in his own business as Jarrett is set to take on Premier Athletes' Ariya Daivari!
SINGLES MATCH...
Jay Lethal vs. Katsuyori Shibata
The August 14th edition of DYNAMITE was a rough one for Jay Lethal as he lost to Hangman Page. The match came to be when Lethal stepped up to defend his friend Jeff Jarrett, but it did not pan out the way he'd hoped. Today is a new day though, and Lethal's got an opportunity to get back on track after that loss; too bad he's faced with one of the most dangerous individuals in pro wrestling today, “The Wrestler” Katsuyori Shibata!
Though they've never been foes before, Lethal and Shibata were partners for a night many years ago in Ring of Honor. Coincidentally, they actually teamed up to defeat a BULLET CLUB team consisting of Cody Rhodes and “Hangman” Adam Page. Lethal and Shibata made quite a solid team, but it was just six weeks later that Shibata's career came to an abrupt, seemingly permanent, end. Fortunately for Katsuyori Shibata, and his fans around the world, “The Wrestler” was able to come back to competition four years later, making matches like this possible!
Can Lethal turn things around after his loss to Hangman, or will it be Shibata's night to continue a roll that's seen him win his last five bouts?
ALSO FEATURING:
-Kris Statlander & Stokely Hathaway in action!
As the final event before ALL IN: LONDON 2024 goes down on Sunday, COLLISION is loaded up and ready to get underway at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TNT, or click here for more information on how to watch in your area. Before showtime, make a point to visit the official AEW YouTube channel to catch up on highlights from DYNAMITE, COLLISION, RAMPAGE, as well as a behind the scenes look at ALL IN: LONDON 2023, HEY! (EW), CLOSE UP w/ Willow Nightingale, and so much more! Then the time is upon us, time to enter the gates of Wembley Stadium and kick off ALL IN: LONDON 2024 at 6pm BST/1pm ET/10am PT, with the ZERO HOUR airing free on YouTube to getting fans ready for the action! When the dust settles from ALL IN: LONDON 2024, AEW returns to the United States and Champaign, IL to experience all the fallout from Sunday's milestone event!
Comments