This is it, the eve of FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, one last night for the athletes competing on Sunday night's pay-per-view extravaganza to make an impact, and two hours of programming for everyone else to earn their spot on this international spectacular! We know that AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay will share their final moments before the championship fight with the official weigh-in, and that NJPW STRONG Women's Champion Stephanie Vaquer will be in action against Lady Frost. Plus the next Quarterfinal bout in the Women's Owen Hart Tournament will go down between Hikaru Shida and Deonna Purrazzo, and we've got ourselves a battle of the Buffalo Boys when Daniel Garcia meets The Butcher in singles competition!
All that, and plenty more, is set to come your way tonight on COLLISION beginning at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TNT, and to get prepped for you must visit the official AEW YouTube channel to catch up on all the highlights from this week's DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as previous episodes of COLLISION, plus can't miss content such as Nyla Rose on CLOSE-UP WITH RENEE PAQUETTE and Queen Aminata on HEY(EW) WITH RJ CITY!
THE WEIGH-IN...
AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay are destined to fight this Sunday night at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024. With the World Title at stake, the tension between the two men has grown exponentially week-after-week since “The Aerial Assassin” won the Casino Gauntlet match to earn this opportunity. Primarily a war of words, things made a turn last week when Swerve took to addressing Ospreay's family, making what was strictly business for Will into something extremely personal. Given that it was Swerve's championship at stake, it was always personal for him, hence why the champion did what he did on Wednesday night when Ospreay again laid his hands on the AEW World Championship title.
With one swift kick to Will's knee and another across his skull, this championship rivalry was elevated to a whole new level prior to Sunday's pay-per-view, and if the two men were kept apart until the bell rang, perhaps they'd have some time to settle and focus on the fight, but that's not the case. Tonight on COLLISION both champion and challenger will be on-hand for the official weigh-in and AEW better put some extra security on this encounter after what we witnessed Wednesday night!
TNT LADDER MATCH PREVIEW...
ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe, Dante Martin, & Lio Rush vs.
“The Scapegoat” Jack Perry, El Phantasmo, & Konosuke Takeshita
The final piece of the TNT Championship Ladder Match puzzle was put into place last night on RAMPAGE when NJPW's El Phantasmo defeated AR Fox to earn his opportunity. So with ELP's inclusion in the match, and the announcement that Konosuke Takeshita would take part in this year's G1 CLIMAX, there is now a very real possibility that the TNT Championship could end up in Japan shortly after FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, but that is a matter for Sunday night.
Tonight on COLLISION, the six participants in the Ladder Match have been split into teams and will face each other in Trios competition before they meet as foes on Long Island! One side of the coin puts ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe with Dante Martin and Lio Rush, two men whose history is a bit complicated, but who probably have a better chance of getting along with one another than their foes. It's Jack Perry, El Phantasmo, and Konosuke Takeshita who will stand together across the ring, ELP and Takeshita are both part of the G1 B Block once that tournament starts, meaning they'll fight each other sometime in the near future, and then there's “The Scapegoat”. Jack Perry has no friends, no allies save The Elite, and it stands to reason that he will have a tough time coexisting with anyone who is not part of their clique.
This is the kind of match that can give the man who scores the winning pinfall some momentum heading into FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024; so who will be the one to get that leg up on his competition?
ONE-ON-ONE...
NJPW STRONG Women's Champion Stephanie Vaquer vs. Lady Frost
Stephanie Vaquer is coming to All Elite Wrestling to both defend her NJPW STRONG Women's World Championship against Mercedes Moné and try to take the TBS Championship from “The CEO”, but she's not only the the champion for NJPW STRONG, she's also a double champion for CMLL. Vaquer is the CMLL World Women's Champion as well as the CMLL World Women's Tag Champion alongside Zeuxis, her status as the latter actually being one of the times she's come into conflict with Lady Frost inside a CMLL ring.
In fact, the two women have clashed multiple times since Lady Frost first came to CMLL in October 2022, and have actually teamed up on a pair of occasions. They've been in tags and trios, multi-woman matches and a forty-eight minute Cibernetico, as well as that aforementioned Tag Team Championship match on 2/16/24. In their six matches as opponents, the two women are 3-3, but tonight on COLLISION will be the first time they've ever gone one-on-one!
It's a crucial night for Stephanie Vaquer, stepping into the ring for a fight just twenty-four hours before FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, with the eyes of TBS Champion Mercedes Moné certainly watching from somewhere, but perhaps that's what the the woman with three belts wants, for her Sunday night opponent to see her in action and know what she's got in store. Clearly it is a huge opportunity for Lady Frost, the kind of situation that could put her into contention for championships should she beat Vaquer tonight, especially if Stephanie defeats Mercedes and leaves with both titles!
WOMEN'S OWEN HART FOUNDATION TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL...
Hikaru Shida vs. “The Virtuosa” Deonna Purrazzo
It's been five months since we last saw Hikaru Shida compete in an AEW ring, in those months she stepped into a ROH ring for SUPERCARD OF HONOR 2024 to challenge ROH Women's World Champion Athena and tripped back to Japan for a pair of pro wrestling events there, but now she's back in the fold tonight to compete in the Women's Owen Hart Tournament for the second time! In 2022 Shida defeated Julia Hart to qualify for the inaugural bracket but circumstances forced her out of the tournament before competing in her quarterfinal round. In 2022, Shida had to watch Kris Statlander step into the spot she qualified for but this year she's got a second chance at winning the whole thing and traveling to ALL IN: LONDON 2024 for a championship match!
As for Deonna Purrazzo, this is her first time around competing in this tournament and she's aiming to parlay her No DQ victory over Thunder Rosa two weeks ago into equal success in The Owen. The winner of this contest will face the winner of the Mariah May/Saraya bout set for FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024: ZERO HOUR in the semifinals, and its certainly going to take a tremendous fight from both women to get the victory tonight in Buffalo!
BATTLE OF BUFFALO...
Daniel Garcia vs. The Butcher
Daniel Garcia is on the precipice of a life-changing night; next Wednesday in Chicago at DYNAMITE: BEACH BREAK 2024 he is already set to challenge AEW International Champion Will Ospreay for that title! It's a championship Garcia hasn't challenged for since FORBIDDEN DOOR 2023's Four Way title bout but one he so desires to call his own, especially when winning it would mean defeating a wrestler the caliber of Ospreay, yet that isn't the only reason that next Wednesday could be the sweetest night of Garcia's professional career, if not his life as a whole. See what has made BEACH BREAK 2024 such a promising night for Daniel Garcia is that Ospreay has promised that if he defeats Swerve Strickland tomorrow night at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, he will also put the AEW World Championship on the line in Chicago! It's the biggest opportunity of Daniel's career, of that there is no doubt, but tonight on COLLISION represent another huge moment for that young man, as well as for the behemoth he is scheduled to face, because tonight represents a homecoming for both Daniel Garcia and The Butcher!
It's a battle of the Buffalo Boys and even though Garcia is giving up a good amount of size to Butch, he proved with Brody King many months ago that his heart can overcome that deficit and take him to victory. This match was already important enough to both men, now it's been elevated for Garcia as a loss here could throw all those championship plans out of sync! Tonight they're doing it for Buffalo, next Wednesday Garcia will be doing it for himself, provided he makes it out of a fight with The Butcher in one piece!
THE THIRD BRANCH?
ALSO FEATURING:
-Hechicero in action!
-Serena Deeb in action!!
-And more!!!
COLLISION gets underway at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TNT, and what a spectacular two hours of professional wrestling it will be! AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay step onto the AEW stage for their official weigh-in before the championship fight, NJPW STRONG Women's Champion Stephanie Vaquer faces Lady Frost, Hikaru Shida and Deonna Purrazzo battle in the next Quarterfinal bout of the Women's Owen Hart Tournament, and don't forget Buffalo's own Daniel Garcia fighting Buffalo's own The Butcher one-on-one! Plus Orange Cassidy and Tomohiro Ishii take on TMDK, Hechicero will be in action, and all six competitors for the TNT Championship Ladder Match square off in Trios competition! It's going to be a wild night on the eve of FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 and fans can get ready for it with a trip to AEW's official YouTube channel for the highlights from this week's DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, previous episodes of COLLISION, and Nyla Rose joining Renee Paquette on CLOSE-UP while Queen Aminata is RJ City's guest on HEY(EW)!