In a week where Maxwell Jacob Friedman reminded the world he's not their scumbug, just a scumbag, and Hangman Page returned as The Elite's hand-picked entry into The Owen (though clearly not at their beck and call), one could easily say it has been a wild one already for All Elite Wrestling. Dr. Britt Baker went nose-to-nose with Double Champion Mercedes Moné, Mariah May defeated Hikaru Shida to advance to The Owen Finals next week, and ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe declared himself Team AEW for Blood & Guts in Nashville!
Now we head to the Memphis area, Southaven, MS to be exact, and the Landers Center for an all-new COLLISION sure to be just as crazy as the rest of this week has been! We've got “Hangman” meeting “Switchblade” in the last Semifinal match of The Owen, MJF opening up the night to rationalize his assault on Daniel Garcia, AEW Women's World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm facing Trish Adora, and so much more coming your way! The action starts tonight at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TNT so prior to showtime, visit the official AEW YouTube channel to catch up on the highlights from DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well post-FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 comments from the athletes of AEW, and more!
Then it is off to Calgary and DYNAMITE at the Calgary Stampede Saddledome where the finals of the Men's & Women's Owen will go down, and AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland will be in his house!
MJF KICKS IT OFF IN MEMPHIS...
If it was any one else on the All Elite Wrestling roster the world might be asking “why”, but because this is Maxwell Jacob Friedman the question is more “why did it take so long”. See while MJF may have returned to the AEW stage at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024 with his charm turned on, while he may have gotten the crowd on his side by kicking Adam Cole in the groin, and while he may have shown the best version of himself in that night, he also told the world who he was at his soul. Fans may have chanted “He's our scumbag” but the whole time MJF was telling them he is just “a scumbag”; he pandered to the crowd for the last month, fed them everything he could for cheers and chants, yet after years of seeing him manipulate and abuse, the AEW faithful largely bought into what MJF was selling.
Then this past Wednesday night happened; MJF cost Daniel Garcia his AEW International Championship match by trying to insinuate the Dynamite Diamond Ring into the equation, and getting Garcia to question himself long enough for Will Ospreay to pull out a Hidden Blade. MJF's feigned apologies should've been transparent, but perhaps Garcia (and the fans) wanted to believe that Max had learned something over the last five years, particularly after his experiences with Adam Cole, but it seems MJF learned the wrong lessons and he's the same man he was at FULL GEAR 2019.
No he's not the same man, he's actually worse because Max has had the experiences over the last five years, he's gone through things that should've taught him how to be a better person, but instead he took the betrayal perpetrated by Adam Cole last year, and has thrown up walls so high to protect himself he's become worse than ever. He did to Daniel Garcia, and the AEW fans, what Cole did to him, albeit on a shorter timeline. In just a matter of weeks MJF manipulated, cajoled, convinced, and gaslighted everyone, but when he bloodied, battered, and hospitalized Daniel Garcia on Wednesday night, the world hopefully opened its eyes to see who MJF really is at his core.
He does not deserve your cheers, and he absolutely does not deserve your respect. He may be an exceptional professional wrestler bell-to-bell with a gift of gab at the level few others possess, but he is a horrible human being who uses and abuses everyone until they're no longer of use. He's just mad Adam Cole got to him before he got to Cole, and now the world has to suffer for it by listening to him open up tonight's episdoe of COLLISION...
MEN'S OWEN HART TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL...
“Hangman” Adam Page vs. “Switchblade” Jay White
It's been seven years since the first time Adam Page and Jay White stepped into the ring with one another. It was February 3rd of 2017, ROH's UNDISPUTED LEGACY event in San Antonio, TX, and the bout pit BULLET CLUB of Hangman, The Young Bucks, and Adam Cole against White, Lio Rush, and the Motor City Machine Guns. The BULLET CLUB crew won the bout, and the two men would be involved in several more contests together (even one as partners in a Wildcard Tag Team bout), but their first singles encounter did not come until 3/25/18 at NJPW's STRONG STYLE EVOLVED 2018 event in Long Beach, CA. By that point Jay White had returned to NJPW from his ROH excursion, taken on the “Switchblade” moniker, and actually dethroned Kenny Omega as the IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion. Hangman stepped up as Jay's first challenger, but was put down after a tremendous twenty-five minute contest. They'd meet again in that year's G1 CLIMAX tournament and once again Jay White would defeat Hangman Page, ultimately finishing scoring 12 points to finish third in the A-Block behind Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada, while Page notched just 6 points.
It would be four years before the two men fought inside the squared circle once again, this time it took place in All Elite Wrestling at the first FORBIDDEN DOOR in 2022, and with the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship on the line in a Four Way that also included Cole and Okada. At ALL IN: LONDON last year Page was on the losing side of the equation when he, Kenny Omega, and Kota Ibushi lost to Switchblade, Juice Robinson, and Konosuke Takeshita. Suffice to say that since White's ascension to “Switchblade”, he has perpetually been one step ahead of “Hangman”, undefeated in their singles matches, and scoring victory in five of their last six encounters.
Yet there is something different this time around, not about “Switchblade” Jay White, he's the ever-confident and cocky character that he's been since the moment he first showed face in All Elite Wrestling. It's Adam Page who is different, who feels like a barely restrained animal waiting to be unleashed by the sound of the bell ringing, with the sole purpose of hurting whoever is in the ring with him en route to victory. Look at the fight with Jeff Jarrett; there was no reason for Hangman to be as violent with Double J as he was, there was no personal animosity between the two men, no history for Page to blame for his behavior towards Jarrett. It was as if Hangman just needed to put a hurting on Jarrett to soothe his own demons. Yet even after the victory when he was met by The Young Bucks, men he once considered as close as brothers, Hangman was still an animal frothing at the mouth. He has changed, the battles with Swerve changed him, and whatever he experienced in his time away from AEW since the REVOLUTION 2024 Three Way has changed him.
It's not the violence, we've seen Hangman get violent many times over throughout his AEW career, but rather the rage that accompanied it, and the look on his face while he's lost in it. There is something dark and scary going on inside this man's head, something unfamiliar from the tribulations we've all witnessed Adam Page undergo in front of the eyes of the world over these last five years, and “Switchblade” Jay White may finally find himself with a version of Adam Page he cannot figure out how to deal with...
ONE-ON-ONE...
AEW Women's World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm vs. The Infantry's Trish Adora
Coming off her tremendous victory at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 over Mina Shirakawa, and showing the world that her, Mariah May, and Mina can get on the...same page, AEW Women's World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm will be in action on COLLISION against The Infantry's Trish Adora! This is a first-timer going down here, a tremendous opportunity for Adora to make an impact as she returns to COLLISION for the first time since her April 6th clash with Yuka Sakazaki. From her first AEW match against Riho back in November 2021 to that fight three months ago, Trish Adora has grown exponentially as an athlete, demonstrating it during ROH ON HONOR CLUB bouts, as well as expanding around the wrestling landscape with DEFY, West Coast Pro, NJPW, ASÉ, Prestige, Tokyo Joshi Pro, and more. The experience Trish has garnered since first coming to AEW has been invaluable, and she is a very real threat to Toni Storm in this Saturday night affair. If she can defeat the champion, Adora stock will skyrocket, and it could very well mean the future for “The Timeless One” includes another fight with Trish Adora!
TRIOS MATCH..
The Conglomeration (ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe, Kyle O'Reilly, & Orange Cassidy) vs Iron Savages (Bronson, Boulder, & Jacked Jameson)
This Conglomeration, as ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe called it, is one of the most fascinating trios in All Elite Wrestling today. These are three men who have no reason to work together as well as they do, and yet their unique personalities have meshed into something any other team in AEW should be quite intimidated when facing. Regardless of what buttons The Undisputed Kingdom try to push with Kyle, no matter how much Roderick Strong insists that Kyle joining them is inevitable, Kyle does not appear to want any part of that, and instead is standing alongside Mark and OC in this conglomeration of individuals!
Tonight on COLLISION, they go into action once more, this time to face the powerful trio of Boulder, Bronson, and Jacked Jameson, collectively known as the Iron Savages, and they are indeed a trio with loads of untapped potential. They are strong, agile, and Jameson certainly has a penchant for running his mouth, but they still need to find a way to put it together and make waves in the trios division. This could be a big night for these sauce sippin' hosses if they can find a way to top three world-caliber athletes like Orange Cassidy, Kyle O'Reilly, and the ROH World Champion!
THE TNT CHAMPION SPEAKETH....
And speaking of Mark Briscoe, on Wednesday night the world heard him announce himself as the first official member of Team AEW for Blood & Guts in Nashville on July 24th, only for the ROH World Champion to get assaulted by newly crowned TNT Champion Jack Perry. This turned into another chaotic situation involving The Elite and The Acclaimed as the latter hit the ring to save Mark from their gang assault on Chicken, and now it looks like we will hear from “The Scapegoat” tonight on COLLISION! What message will he have to share with Mark Briscoe, the AEW faithful, and potential members of Team AEW?
ALSO FEATURING:
-Riho vs. Lady Frost
-We will hear from Christian Cage & The Patriarchy!!
-And more!!!
AEW is heading to Memphis area tonight for COLLISION and a return to the Landers Center! Former AEW World Champion MJF is slotted to open up the show to somehow justify his horrific attack on Daniel Garcia Wednesday night, but once that is over we'll have AEW Women's World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm in action against Trish Adora, Jay White and Hangman Page fighting for a spot in The Owen Finals next week, and plenty more on tap for your Saturday night fights! It gets underway at 8pm ET/7pm CT tonight on TNT so make a point to check out the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from Wednesday's DYNAMITE, Friday's RAMPAGE, plus post-FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 comments, and so much more!
Next week AEW heads back to Calgary and the Saddledome for the finals of the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, and we welcome back AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland after his FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 defense against Will Ospreay!