AEW Collision: July 27, 2024: Battle of the Belts XI (and Rampage, July 26)

July 27, 2024 4:52 PM - Season 2, Episode 7

An extra hour of wrestling is never not welcome, especially when it means we have three women's matches, two trios matches (including a title shot), and also the AEW debut of Mansoor and Mason, the "MxM Collection".

RAMPAGE -- July 26

Royal Rampage Match: Winner Earns an AEW World Title Shot at AEW Grand Slam -- Darby Allin triumphs in a multi-man battle that included Claudio Castagnoli, Orange Cassidy, Brody King, Komander, Brian Cage, Tomohiro Ishii, The Butcher, Roderick Strong, “Daddy Magic” Matt Menard, Brandon Cutler, Kyle O’Reilly, Jeff Jarrett, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, Jay Lethal, Kip Sabian and Lio Rush.

"This year’s Royal Rampage might not have been as strong as previous year’s editions, but it was still an entertaining match. Allin as the holder of the AEW World Title shot at Grand Slam in September will make whoever leaves All In: London as AEW Champion between Swerve Strickland and Bryan Danielson quite the interesting opponent."

Not to mention that Darby already has his match for the TNT Championship set for All In next month. I don't think we're going to get Two-Belt Darby, but the company is clearly getting a good workrate from the boy before he swans off to die on Everest or something.

Kris Statlander defeated Leila Gray

Lance Archer defeated some local talent before the poor bastard could even enter the ring

The Don Callis Family (Rush & Kyle Fletcher) defeated The Outrunners (Truth Magnum and Turbo Floyd), The Righteous (Vincent & Dutch) and Private Party (Isaiah Kassidy & Marq Quen)

"A decent main event that did get disrupted a bit by the sheer length of Royal Rampage so the flow felt a bit off. That said, it’s always good seeing these four teams get a spotlight in the main event."

COLLISION -- July 27

The announced card for tonight:

FTR Vs. MxM Collection (Mason Madden & Mansoor)
Orange Cassidy Vs. Johnny TV
The Beast Mortos Vs. Hologram
Lio Rush vs. PAC
Thunder Rosa vs. Maya World
Trios Match: "The Conglomeration" of Mark Briscoe, Tomohiro Ishii & Kyle O’Reilly vs. "The Premier Athletes" Ariya Daivari, Josh Woods & Tony Nese

AEW Battle of the Belts XI Lineup:

AEW Women’s World Championship Eliminator Match: Toni Storm (c) vs. Taya Valkyrie
CMLL Women’s World Championship Eliminator Match: Willow Nightingale (c) vs. Deonna Purrazzo
ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship Match: The Undisputed Kingdom vs. Dustin Rhodes & The Von Erichs

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (6 comments total)

A bonus match! Blackpool Combat Club (specifically Wheeler Yuta) overcomes Top Flight and Shane Taylor Promotions, even though Shane Taylor did himself an injury at last night's ROH Death Before Dishonor, so Brian Cage fills in as a hired gun. Yuta comes out looking like a tactician, protecting the Seatbelt finisher, but I'm not happy that Lee Moriarty, who just won the ROH Pure belt off Yuta last night, ends up looking like a chump.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:02 PM on July 27

Mark Briscoe promos have gotten better and better. First referring to Ishii as "Big Tommy", then giving his ROH title for Kyle O'Reilly to hold like a baby, followed by him introducing his actual baby son Lil Jay, named after his late brother, and oh my is someone chopping onions in here?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:08 PM on July 27

Hologram's match against Mortos was soooo good. I mean, as a side effect it made me actually worry that AEW don't need to hire Ricochet as long as this guy can run across the rope for a gorgeous topé, or pull off a top-turnbuckle magistral cradle.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:33 PM on July 27

"The Acclaimed were backstage after Blood and Guts on Wednesday. Anthony Bowens cut a fired-up promo about defending AEW and told everyone to never underestimate the Acclaimed. Max Caster talked about FTR, saying that they would’ve been in the cage with them if they loved AEW as much as they claimed. Bowens told the Young Bucks to rest up because the Acclaimed had their tag team title match coming down the pike."

So glad this promo got aired in full instead of being stuck on Twitter.

In similar news, the third hour opened with clips from AEW's panel at San Diego Comic Con, where Mercedes and Kamille showed up cosplaying as -- very specifically -- Poison Ivy and Bane from "Batman & Robin" (1997). They started a scuffle with Britt Baker which led to TK making the title match for All In during the panel.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:31 PM on July 27

Willow took some bumps during her match that... I really would have rather she didn't? Like, not on the head please? Both women's eliminator matches end with champ victories, as these eliminator matches nearly always do. I hardly see the point of them. But the finale seems to have implications for Willow, as Taya seems to have no problem helping Deonna cheat, and next week Willow has another eliminator match against Kris Statlander. Guess CMLL really wants a high workrate for their women's champ!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:04 PM on July 27

Surprised by the main event, I truly thought that Dustin and the VEs were thrown together just as a pretext to keep the titles on the Undisputed Kingdom. Although I suppose that once the AEW tour leaves Texas they can always change hands again.

Sadly(?), this also breaks the tradition of BOTB never having a title change unless the challenger was Sammy Guevara.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:16 PM on July 27