I spent the first part of my day in Rutland, Vermont at the punk rock flea market organized by local hero Nick Grandchamp. There, I became the proud owner of six storage bins full of VHS tapes because my genius plan in the year 2024 is to open a brick and mortar video rental shop. Take that, streaming media!

I also ate great street corn & tacos and bought some games for the N64 and Sega Genesis. Am I a man simply lost to time? Maybe. But you can bury me with my multiple copies of Fire In The Sky.

The Bad

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

A disappointing return to singles action for Malakai Black

There have been rumors circulating forever that Malakai Black had some unknown injury that put him on the shelf and was the reason he was wrestling tag and trios matches exclusively. Is that true? Who knows. His showing against Bryan Keith tonight didn't do him any favors, though.

This match was, at times, sloppy and uncoordinated – something that is almost never true of either guy. So, did they just have bad chemistry? That's certainly a possibility. Sometimes two wrestlers just don't gel with one another. Malakai has looked great in trios and tag matches, and it's not like he just stood around doing nothing in those bouts. So, for me, I'm not anything close to prepared to write him off as a singles guy just yet.

I'm no investigative journalist or anything, so I'm not going to go into a deep dive on Malakai's medical history. I will say, though, that this was one of the matches I was most looking forward to this week and it definitely did not meet my expectations.

The post-match shenanigans with Mark Briscoe and the full House of Black was great, though. If Mark is set on taking on all three guys, he'll need some backup and it will be interesting to see who he chooses. The Bounty Hunter seems like an easy choice, but who would fill out the group?

The In-Between

The middle-ground stuff here falls into the "disappointing" and "plodding" categories for me, but that isn't to say things were completely irredeemable.

A little rough, but Thunder Rosa's return is improving

Thunder Rosa's return was a nice surprise when it happened, but the matches so far have fallen a bit short. With tonight's match against Ladybird Monroe, things looked a little bit brighter.

Ladybird comes from my old school in Austin, AAPW, and has done some work at Rosa's Mission Pro Wrestling in Central Texas. Ladybird looked a little unsure of herself a couple of times in the match which, from the casual viewer, looked to be from trying to rush through things.

She may have also caught a chop in the mouth trying to dodge Rosa in the corner, but it didn't slow her down.

Rosa came up with the victory with the Tijuana Bomb, this being the best that move has looked since she's started using it.

Nothing spectacular, and it was short, but hopefully a sign of better days ahead for Rosa.

A means to an end

We all know where the Bang Bang Scissor Gang thing is going – BCC turn on The Acclaimed and win the AEW Trios Titles from them. That's fine, and I'll be happy when we finally get there.

The BBSG taking on Iron Savages was a hallmark of an AEW booking issue I have, which is throwing a relatively unestablished team out there to eat a loss. I generally like Iron Savages but they've been in this position before where they're off of television for weeks (or months) and then pop up just to be beaten.

It doesn't do them any favors and it doesn't make the win mean much of anything for their opponents. And maybe that's fine! I suppose it's better than beating Local Talent, but it still irks me.

There was a nice beat of storytelling here with Colten leaping into his team's corner for the hot tag only to tag Jay White instead of his own father. The seed of dissension was first planted when Billy knocked Jay off of the apron and it was watered a little bit here. Let's get to a full bloom in time for Revolution.

The Bryan Danielson Retirement Tour Continues

Listen, Danielson vs Jun Akiyama wasn't a bad match. There's no planet in any universe in which this could be considered a bad match. It did feel, though, as if it was missing something. Just a little spark.

The storytelling was on point, though. With Eddie Kingston on commentary, Danielson set out to destroy one of Eddie's heroes fifteen feet away from him. While this certainly wasn't a dissection of Jun Akiyama, Danielson did get the win via the Busaiku Knee which looked like it only grazed Akiyama, if we're being honest.

That may be one of my gripes with the match; it was full of knee strikes, but not all of them looked like they had a lot of weight behind them. Some didn't manage to look like they made the right contact at all.

Nonetheless, the bones of the match were good and the post-match put a nice cherry on top of the Danielson/Eddie feud. After the match, Danielson shot the bird to Eddie but was then reprimanded with a slap from Akiyama. Danielson booted Akiyama below the belt, baiting Eddie into the ring leading to a short brawl between the BCC, Eddie, and FTR.

Wednesday night we'll get Eddie & FTR vs the BCC which is a damn fine trios match to have on tap.

The Good

Everyone who beat ass made this a super fun show. Everybody should always be beating ass!

Powerhouse Hobbs Hates Kevin Kelly!

I will never look like Hobbs or be as strong as Hobbs or be as cool as Hobbs, but he yelled at Kevin Kelly and stole his belt – and that's pretty great! Hobbs and I both dislike Kevin Kelly! If only he had crushed him to the Earth's core with the World's Most Dangerous Slam.

Sammy Guevara has been a bit of a hard sell at times in AEW. He's kind of too naturally smarmy and slimy to be a great babyface, yet he's continually placed in that role. He's like the anti Ricky Steamboat. I'll always have a soft spot for him, though, seeing him on the Texas indies years ago – even if his "I Am Jesus" entrance theme was one of the worst on record.

Here against Hobbs in a No DQ Match, though, Sammy hit all of the right notes. And only some of the time was it Hobbs throwing him into those notes.

Honestly, the No DQ/Falls Count Anywhere/Whatever matches have all been hitting in AEW as of late. This one was no different. These matches don't devolve into hitting each other with trash can lids and kendo sticks – they are, most of the time, a 400 MPH death race between two or more people trying to rip each other limb from limb.

Tonight, it was Hobbs who destroyed just a little bit better as he walked away with the win after hitting a World's Most Dangerous Slam from the second rope through a table.

A hell of a thing to see. Especially on free TV.

STP will always mean Shane Taylor Promotions and never Stone Temple Pilots

Shane Taylor rules. Lee Moriarty rules. The two of them being on TV a little more regularly absolutely rules.

FTR, hot off of the official announcement that they'll rematch Mox and Claudio at Revolution, did the FTR Special: give the opponents a ton of offense so they look like a million bucks before Cash gets the hot tag and cleans house. It's a good formula that always works.

Expectedly, FTR nabbed the win with their modified Doomsday Device (with some Steiner Brothers sprinkled in) heading into Revolution. But, just because it was expected doesn't mean it can't be great and that was the case here. STP always turn out and have fantastic matches, and fingers crossed that they figure more into the tag division in AEW in 2024.

Pretty damn stoked for BCC/FTR at Revolution. I was hoping for a little bit of spice on the match with a 2 Out Of 3 Falls or Iron Man stipulation but it's going be great regardless.

Elevating the women's division one knee at a time

I've been a big fan of both Lady Frost and Serena Deeb and they put on a fairly solid display of what the women's division could (and should) be. Still establishing Deeb on her comeback, Frost didn't get a ton of time to shine here but still looked great in the few opportunities given to her.

Deeb has a great clothesline. She leans her whole body into it, making it look like she actually wants to level her opponent rather than just catching them slightly with her forearm. I don't know if anyone else in the women's division throws a lariat in quite the same way and it's one thing amongst many that stands out about Deeb. She also has that flying/driving lariat ala Bret Hart down, to which I'm also partial.

While the match itself wasn't spectacular or a match of the year candidate, it was a great showcase for Deeb without being a total squash.

Post-match, Deeb cut a promo reiterating that she would put the wrestling back in All Elite Wrestling with some direct shots at Julia Hart and Toni Storm along the way. I'm very much invested in Deeb's quest to win a belt in the coming months, or at the very least get in the title picture. Maybe a technical wrestling feud with (potential) new World Champion Deonna Purrazzo after Revolution?

Wrapping Up

A decent episode of Collision capping off a week of AEW programming that felt somewhat listless. There's just one more week of shows before Revolution with hopes that they turn up the heat ahead of the PPV. Honestly, though, the PPV is already sold with so many huge matches announced so we may have just fallen into a weird holding pattern without much else to do to build those matches ahead of next Sunday.