AEW Collision: October 21, 2023 & Battle of the Belts VIII

October 21, 2023 4:05 PM - Season 1, Episode 19

Eat a hearty dinner, because AEW goes long tonight. Emnating from Memphis this evening, Collision will be immediately followed by Battle of the Belts VIII, for a grand total of 8 announced matches including four title defenses.

The announced card for Collision:

AEW World Tag Team Championship Match: Ricky Starks & Big Bill (c) vs. Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta

Memphis Street Fight: Eddie Kingston vs. Jeff Jarrett

If Jarrett wins, Jay Lethal gets an ROH Championship match, and the no-DQ nature of the stipulation pretty much guarantees that some underhanded shenanigans will take place to get Lethal into position.

“FTR” Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler in action

Bryan Danielson vs. Andrade El Idolo

Somehow AEW keeps finding first-time-ever matches, because the last time these two had a singles match, it was on Smackdown in 2018.

Miro vs. Action Andretti

The announced card for Battle of the Belts VIII:

AEW World Trios Championship Match: The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens and Max Caster) and Billy Gunn (c) vs. Matt Menard, Angelo Parker, and Daniel Garcia

AEW TBS Championship Match: Kris Statlander (c) vs. Willow Nightingale

AEW International Championship Match: Orange Cassidy (c) vs. John Silver

If AEW expects me to take the Dark Order seriously as heels, then one way to do that would be to have Silver show no patience whatsoever for Cassidy's laid-back style and simply truck through him, not even giving him the opportunity to stick hands in pockets. On the other hand, if they want me to take Orange Cassidy seriously again as champion, then he'll have to put up a fight so I stop believing he's keeping the seat warm until Moxley comes back.

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (8 comments total)

Of course Danielson and Andrade put on a classic, but the exclamation part at the end was Malakai Black making a return -- sans face paint but with some cool contact lenses -- to make a vicious roundhouse kick to a victorious Bryan's head.

The Gunns show up to squash the Outrunners, and then the Devil-masked-man finally makes his next appearance. My pet theory is that MJF has put so much energy into not being a heel that he's actually formed a Tyler Durden alterego that takes action without him knowing.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:00 PM on October 21, 2023

The street fight goes about as expected, with Eddie putting up a valiant defense against Jeff Jarrett's squad, but despite throwing around furniture, garbage cans and a lot of ketchup and mustard, he takes the pin and will defend against Jay Lethal.

A big laugh line from me was Nigel asking legendary Memphis commentator Dave Brown if he could name other "famous kings" from Memphis, and then cutting him off before he could mention Jerry Lawler.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:08 PM on October 21, 2023

Miro vs. Action Andretti was not a squash, surprisingly. The littler man put up a surprising amount of credible offense in the beginning and end of the match (while Miro beat his ass for most of the middle), even finding a way to roll Miro up in his first attempt at the Game Over. Clearly AEW has their eye on his future, telling the story that he had actually scouted Miro before the match.

For her part, Lana had nothing to say to either man. To be honest, Andretti's showing was good enough that she ought to take him on as a client anyway.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:23 PM on October 21, 2023

The story of the tag title match seems to be that Ricky and Bill showed up with a game plan that involved keeping up a variety of moves and tagging back and forth, while it seems the other side's plan was "let them inflict lots of pain of Wheeler Yuta and hope he can tag out before he dies". Yet it turned out to almost work!

Instead the House of Black shows up for the third time -- after also crashing FTR's quick win -- to tilt the match and help the champs retain, leading to a big brawl and the return of Jon Moxley!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:01 PM on October 21, 2023

Added on to BOTBVIII: Samoa Joe defending his ROH Television title against Tony Nese in rapid fashion, and then declares his intention to take the World Championship from MJF. I'm a bit concerned of this violated that fundamental rule: you're supposed to be selling me on MJF vs Jay White at Full Gear, not undermining it by presenting Joe next.

Not that I don't think an MJF/Samoa Joe program would rule, but if you get me excited for that now you're shortchanging your next PPV.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:27 PM on October 21, 2023

I was going to be proud of myself for noticing that Willow is also starting to leak evil from her eyes, just as Skye Blue is, with Julia Hart's mist as the infection vector. Then Kevin Kelly went ahead and turned the subtext into text, ah well.

Meanwhile Kris Stat and WIllow got into a goddamn glorious bodyslam exhibition. Feats of strength all around but Kris has a little more variety in her moveset, which is key to her victory. Then Skye rolls into the ring post-match in her dark clothes and tries to break up the handshake, giving Kris the stankeye.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:45 PM on October 21, 2023

Whoa Orange just used his International Championship CHAOS connection to book a tag match between Claudio and Danielson vs him and Okada?!? Like that's just a thing he can do? Did anyone else know that Cassidy can just summon The Rainmaker out of thin air?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:52 PM on October 21, 2023

And so another Battle of the Belts come to a close with all titles successfully defended.

FUN FACT: The only time a challenger has ever won at BOTB is when the challenger was Sammy Guevara.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:02 PM on October 21, 2023