You're telling me Tomohiro Ishii is wrestling Orange Cassidy on the same show where we get more of CMLL wrestling Blackpool Combat Club, where Queen Aminata gets yet another chance to shine, where Brody King fights Mark Briscoe, and where Daniel Garcia fights Shane Taylor and you expect me to find anything substantial to put in the The Bad section other than "Kevin Kelly stinks"?

Get a life!

While this episode wasn't as thrilling as recent episodes of Collision it was, for the most part, technically sound and fun to watch.

The Bad

Kevin Kelly stinks. Get him off of my TV and out of my ears!

Outrunning The Outrunners

What can you really say about a Brian Cage squash? Essentially identical to the Hook squash of the same guys, Cage laid waste to Turbo Floyd and Truth Magnum in short order before also disposing of Local Sports Team's hockey mascot after the match.

Before any more damage could be done, Hook (noted mascot enthusiast) rushed out to pull Cage away from Chance The Gila Monster. While this is in the The Bad section, I do like that I just wrote that sentence.

A pretty terrible crowd

After having such a loud and excited crowd on Wednesday night in Phoenix, having a crowd half as large and a quarter as loud was a real downer. There were times that it felt like nobody in the entire building was making a peep. Very weird thing to feel while watching a TV wrestling show.

Here's hoping crowds become larger and a bit more consistent for AEW in 2024.

The In-Between

A common complaint of mine is quantity over quality in regards to women's matches in AEW. Most of the time when we get more than one women's match on a TV show, one of the matches is a total squash. This wasn't so much the case tonight, but still bordered on that situation.

Two women's matches, but the feeling on Collision is still a little hollow

It's great that at least one of AEW's weekly shows seems to have become the place for more than one women's match per show, but it'd be even nicer if the matches felt like something.

Deonna Purrazzo/Kiera Hogan was fine but essentially a squash, placed strategically on the card to coordinate Deonna's exit with the entrance of AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm.

Storm/Queen Aminata was less of a one-sided affair with Aminata having plenty of chance to show out again. It wasn't quite up to par with her previous great matches on Collision and Dynamite, but she still stood on the same ground as the World Champion which can never be a negative.

Of course, Storm picked up the win by Aminata once again looked strong in defeat.

Anyway:

The Good

What's good on Collision? The wrestling! The professional wrestling!

Blood and bruises in another chapter of CMLL vs BCC

I can't say enough how much I'm enjoying this CMLL vs BCC feud that's quickly built over the last few weeks. Something I find special about it is the way the storyline has been used to introduce multiple different members of the CMLL roster to AEW rather than relying on a strict set of guys for a common 3 vs 3 with BCC.

Tonight, Esfinge and Star Jr stepped up after getting involved post-match on Dynamite and stood toe-to-toe with Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli.

While the match didn't have all of the trappings and excitement of Hechicero/Danielson from last week, it showed who Esfinge and Star Jr are with enough time for them both to shine on the mat and in the air. Star Jr's corkscrew tornillo hit Claudio like a truck and looked especially fantastic.

While the BCC came out with the win, it wasn't a match that felt lopsided in any way especially with Mox and Claudio both being left bloodied by the end of it. In the post-match of this one, Mox sent a message to the CMLL locker room before being interrupted by FTR.

FTR faced off with BCC briefly before the two teams began brawling until they were, more or less, pulled apart by wrestlers and staff.

Of all of the places things could have gone, I wasn't necessarily expecting an FTR/BCC detour especially after FTR and Daniel Garcia recently spoke about their potential trios future. But, a looming FTR/BCC match (or even an FTR & Garcia vs BCC trios match) sounds good to me.

Put Shane Taylor on my television every single week

I know Shane Taylor has been in and around ROH more than AEW for much of his run, but I've been super stoked about his (and Lee Moriarty's) growing presence on AEW television. Taylor is just incredible and it feels like every crowd is surprised or taken off guard by how good he is whenever he has a match on Dynamite or Collision. I hope that, sooner than later, crowds stop being surprised.

At one point during the match Shane chopped Daniel Garcia in the corner and it was, perhaps, one of the loudest chops I've ever heard come across on television. I swore out loud at my television set.

This match did as much to establish (again) Taylor as a monster as it did establishing (again) that Garcia is an underdog who never quits. Sticking to a ground game focused on the knee, Garcia was able to pick apart Taylor before leading to the second tapout of the night in as many matches.

I've had my fingers crossed we were full steam ahead on the train to Daniel Garcia: AEW TNT Champion, and after interrupting Adam Copeland to step directly into the title picture that destination is quickly coming into view. Wednesday night, Copeland and Garcia will face off with the winner challenging Christian Cage and if Garcia can pick up the win it'll be a further step in cementing him as a real player in AEW.

I love evil and Satan and blood

Brody King and Mark Briscoe had an, unsurprisingly, great match. Briscoe is still in his self-proclaimed rookie year as a singles wrestler so it's fine for him to eat a loss here and there on his road to establishing himself as a serious threat.

Brody, on the other hand, should be murdering everybody on the screen at all times. He's hands-down my favorite male member of the House of Black and could easily be positioned in AEW World Title Contention in 2025, if not by the end of 2024. He's just so god damned good in so many different ways.

After disposing of Briscoe, Brody held Mark in place while Julia stabbed him in the head with a spike nail. Briscoe gushed blood in short order as the House mugged around him.

I guess FTR used their one post-match appearance already to confront BCC and couldn't be bothered to save Mark? If the FTR boys are going to be preoccupied with BCC for a while, it's going to leave Briscoe needing some additional backup to even the odds with the House of Black.

I'm a happy man, write whatever you want about me

Any day that I get to see neckless human refrigerator Tomohiro Ishii wrestle on my television is a good day. He's been a favorite of mine for a long time, despite his theme music always making my dog nervously perk up his ears thinking he's about to be descended upon by a pack of (stone) Pitbulls.

While Orange Cassidy's current run as International Champion hasn't been as exciting or impressive as his first, it's not for lack of trying. His title defenses have been just as consistently great, there's just something about the magic of the first time that doesn't quite hit this time around.

That being said, if you put Cassidy and Ishii in a ring together you're not going to end up with a bad match by any stretch of the imagination.

I mentioned earlier that the crowd was fairly dead most of the night, but they seemed to come alive for this main event. The people of Nevada love Tomohiro Ishii!