AEW Collision: March 22 & 23, 2025 - Slam Dunk Saturday (and Sunday)

March 22, 2025 8:13 PM - Season 2, Episode 38

The NCAA Championship tournament bumps Collision to a later time slot -- that slot being "whenever the games end" -- so in compensation AEW gets to run both weekend nights. Both nights will see a title defended, Julia Hart and Queen Aminata have their rubber match, a genuine lucha tag team showcase, and Johnny TV tries to distract Bandido from his attack vector on Chris Jericho.

The announced card for Slam Dunk Saturday:

TNT Championship Match: Daniel Garcia (c) vs. Adam Cole -- everyone banned from ringside
Trios Match: Powerhouse Hobbs, Mark Briscoe & Rocky Romero vs. Konosuke Takeshita & The Murder Machines (Brian Cage & Lance Archer)
Julia Hart vs. Queen Aminata -- each woman has one win over the other, this is match #3
Max Caster continues his "Best Wrestler Alive" Open Challenge

The announced card for Slam Dunk Sunday:

AEW World Trios Championship Match: Death Riders (c) vs. A.R. Fox & Top Flight
Los Titánes del Aire (Komander & Hologram) vs. Dralístico & The Beast Mortos
Harley Cameron in action
Johnny TV vs. Bandido

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (4 comments total)

Daniel Garcia's facial expressions were high-level selling, yet at the same time reminded me of an eight-year-old in a school play. He's innovated a new kind of Shining Wizard where he uses the ropes to launch himself upwards, and manages to last the full 20 minutes (since the TNT belt is a television title, that's the time limit for the match). Kinda acts like a smug dick about retaining the title, but he did manage to survive three different Panama Sunrises and the Figure Four, so I suppose it's earned. Adam Cole gets angry that the bell rang before he could do his big knee strike, and typically he gets heelish whenever he feels overlooked.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:48 PM on March 22

Julia Hart's work always stands out -- she's not big and strong, she's not a notable striker, so all her in-ring work has to originate from her gimmick, being unpredictably tricky and weird. At least twice on camera she's got an grin after Aminata strikes her, and I'm choosing to believe it wasn't breaking kayfabe. She stays agile enough to force Aminata to overbet on a big sliding dropkick that bounces her off the rope and directly into a rollup. Spooky over strong once again!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:09 PM on March 22

Mark Briscoe is the star of their trios match, when the other side is exclusively large meaty men he's bouncing around hacking away at them from all sides with redneck kung-fu (actual terminology used). He's been in the business so long that he can be completely in control of the match even when it looks like he's wildly improvising from underneath the odds.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:24 PM on March 22

So unfortunate that I don't see a Sunday title change. You can tell that AEW really wants Top Flight to shine as high-fliers because Death Riders had PAC in this match and he didn't jump once. Imagine telling PAC to stick to ground-based offense, it's the sort of thing you only do when Top Flight and Fox can bust out these immaculate flip moves that take out two opponents at a time. I'm a particular fan of Fox leaving PAC on the apron, doing a running rope-assist somersault over the ropes to plant his feet into his guts, and immediately leaping from there to tackle Yuta.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:45 PM on March 23