AEW Collision 6/24/23: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of the second-ever episode of "AEW Collision," which aired on June 24, 2023! Coming off "Collision's" explosive debut last week and the ensuing episode of "AEW Dynamite," we had numerous questions that need answering. Who would advance in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament? Would Andrade El Idolo enlist some help in his war with the House of Black? What surprises awaited us on the final stop before Forbidden Door? And would CM Punk get his hands on a microphone again in advance of the eight-man tag team main event?

If you followed our live coverage of the show, you already know the answers to all (well, most of) these questions. But what did we actually think about the show? What made us jump out of our seats, or left us scratching our heads? Here are three things we loved and three things we hated about the June 24 episode of "AEW Collision."

It's been 20 years since Chris Jericho and Christian Cage were partners in WWE, a run that saw them engage in all sorts of clownish comedy. Jericho ended up marking his name in the history books as the first AEW World Champion, while Christian has been playing a stone cold heel in AEW, taking his promos to dark places and breaking whatever's left of kayfabe with every other word. But the clownishness that lies at the heart of both wrestlers inevitably finds a way out, and "Collision's" first night in Canada was no exception.

Jericho was the first of the two to troll the Canadian crowd, noting that he wasn't even from Toronto and pulling out a very deep cut with the line "I'm from Winnipeg, you idiots!" The segment may have only existed so Sting and Darby Allin could announce Tetsuya Naito as their mystery partner for Forbidden Door, but Jericho was, as usual, the highlight of the night.

Christian, meanwhile — who actually is from Toronto — decided to take the concept of the "heel disses local sports team" promo to new heights, claiming he personally drove NBA superstar Kawhi Leonard out of Toronto after the Raptors won the NBA title in 2019. At a moment when Christian's specific brand of edgy villainy is starting to get a little stale, it was hilarious and refreshing to hear him get heat by suggesting he had a direct hand in sports events from four years ago. And it was made even better by the fact that neither Christian nor Jericho really had no reason to be out there beyond the fact that they're Canadian heels and it's fun to make the crowd boo them. At heart, they will always be those clowns from 2003.

It wasn't too long ago that people were talking about Swerve Strickland as an up-and-coming heel within AEW, a megastar just waiting to explode. Those days seem long gone now, as evidence by the fact that he just took a clean loss in a match he was never going to win to a guy who doesn't work for his company. Partially he's simply the victim of bad timing when it comes to Forbidden Door, but if AEW could dredge up something called a Jeremy Prophet for Powerhouse Hobbs to squash on the same episode, you'd think they could find someone slightly lower-profile for Hiroshi Tanahashi to beat before his championship match with MJF. Was Slim J busy or something?

The only real reason to book Tanahashi vs. Swerve is if you thought the match would be a banger, but it ended up being pretty nondescript. Tana is a legend, but he's also 46 years old and doesn't move like he used to — to the point that Kevin Kelly is talking about how he has to win matches with his mind now — and he's just not a great opponent for Swerve, whose style is built around dynamic movement and fast-paced action. They didn't stink up the place, but nobody is going to remember that match happened next week. And in the meantime, Swerve just continues fading into the background, which shouldn't legally be allowed to happen. He's a potential main-eventer, and he's wrestling on the Forbidden Door pre-show.

Andrade El Idolo had the best match of "Collision's" debut episode last week against Buddy Murphy, and the trend continued this week, as he put in an excellent showing against another member of the House of Black, Brody King. Yes, it ended in a disqualification, and yes, it remains a little weird that Andrade came back and started using the finisher made famous by his wife, who happens to work for WWE, but the match itself was hard-hitting and exciting, and the finish worked in the service of continuing the only actual storyline "Collision" really has at this point, which is "Andrade could use some friends to help him fight these murder goths."

One of the problems with "Collision" debuting two weeks before Forbidden Door is that some of the Forbidden Door storylines are, for obvious reasons, hijacking TV time from this brand new wrestling product. Andrade, however, is immune to this. As a talent who also works for lucha libre promotion AAA, he has reportedly been banned from working Forbidden Door, as NJPW has a strong relationship with AAA's rival promotion, CMLL (there had been some speculation that Andrade might end up getting some surprise help from Los Ingobernables de Japon, given his history with the faction, but LIJ leader Naito being part of a different feud seems to have put that possibility to bed). He's almost certainly not wrestling Sunday night, meaning his booking is unaffected by Forbidden Door plans and he can continue telling the simple story of "Hey wait, didn't I also have a faction at some point, do I really need to form a whole new one?" If he continues having match of the night contenders with the somehow still underused Trios Champions, Andrade could quickly become one of "Collision's" star attractions.

Willow Nightingale is great, and it's great to see her get a strong win in a good match with Nyla Rose to advance in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. If you ever read any criticism of Willow in this space, check to make sure you're not reading a secret accidental doppelganger column. It's also good to see Saraya back on TV. But man, we are really still just doing the same thing with the Outcasts vs. the Originals, huh? One of the Originals won a match, the Outcasts came out to surround her, and another one of the Originals came out to make the save. It wasn't so much a build to Willow vs. Toni Storm on Sunday than it was a necessary reminder that the match was even happening (and three heels running away from two babyfaces is veering dangerously close to Damage CTRL territory).

Saraya has been out of action for undisclosed reasons for a while now, and Jamie Hayter is currently injured, so there are at least good reasons for why this storyline has been spinning its wheels. But it's also the latest example of Tony Khan either not knowing how to pivot when something goes wrong, or simply not being willing to change his plans. It's very possible that Khan's plans for the women's division heading into Forbidden Door were totally derailed by the injury suffered by Mercedes Mone, but there are ways to keep things going in interesting new directions when your original plans don't work out. Khan seems incapable of changing direction when he has an idea in place, and as a result, we're stuck with the status quo.

One of the only things Tony Khan loves more than dragging out a storyline until somebody can return from injury is booking multi-man tag team matches, and it's a tendency that sometimes works against him. But not this week.

The eight-man tag main event was ridiculously fun, perfectly structured to highlight everyone involved, with numerous tiny stories being told via the in-ring work. The match was well-paced without ever being boring, taking its time when necessary and picking its spots when it came to getting all eight guys in on the action. It was a shame to see Ricky Starks take the pin (that man's stock has dropped through the floor since his victory over Chris Jericho) but that's basically the only complaint you could possibly have.

And hey, somebody on the babyface team had to take the pin, because the heels absolutely had to win that match, and it was great to see the right team go over. If Starks has been plummeting in AEW's power rankings recently, the Gunns have been skyrocketing upward, and nobody came out of this episode looking better than them. Their membership in Bullet Club Gold still isn't official, but the post-match celebration really seemed like an invitation offered and accepted — and come on, how can you not have a team called the Gunns be a part of the Bullet Club? The four of them just fit well together and have everything it takes to be the top heels on "Collision," and they just got a seemingly clean win over some of AEW's top babyfaces. It was the right move to close out a great match, and if that becomes the norm, this show has a bright future ahead of it.

This was CM Punk's first appearance in an AEW ring outside the Chicago area since he returned to the company, and the response to him from the Toronto crowd was ... mixed, to say the least. Much of the audience was firmly behind White and his cronies, to the extent that there were portions of the contest that were scarily reminiscent of the crowd response John Cena used to get in WWE.

Cena's mixed reaction obviously happened for different reasons than Punk's — few people have ever chanted "You can't wrestle" at Punk, while Cena, to our knowledge, has never buried company executives in front of the media — but it's still ironic to hear that specific response for the man who once famously told Cena himself that "You are what you hate," and "You have become the New York Yankees." Punk and Tony Khan knew this was coming sooner rather than later, as evidenced by Punk's promo last week, but that's also the reason a lot of people thought Punk might turn heel upon his return — to take advantage of that inevitable mixed reaction. While there's still time to do that, it sure is starting to feel like Punk is just going to continue on as a babyface in AEW, boos or no boos. If that's the case, the Cena comparisons will quickly become inescapable, especially if he wins a lot, becomes champion again, and/or generally starts to feel like a guy being protected by the company (and positively invoking the name of David Zaslav last week didn't help with that).

Punk's brand has always been that of an underdog kept down by corporate chosen ones. It would be ironic (and somewhat unsettling) to see him embrace the role of the corporate chosen one instead.