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Write Forever: Mark Davis got a big fat dumper on AEW Collision for March 15

Write Forever: Mark Davis got a big fat dumper on AEW Collision for March 15

The International Title Eliminator Tournament continues tonight with Ricochet vs Katsuyori Shibata and the battle of the Marks as Davis faces Briscoe. On Dynamite, "Speedball" Mike Bailey and Orange Cassidy advanced to the finals so whoever joins them will ensure a fun-as-hell four-way match this Wednesday.

We also get a rematch from a couple of weeks ago of Undisputed Kingdom vs FTR. Will FTR continue to have attitude problems and refuse to shake hands? Will Dax Harwood continue to make bad decisions like asking for a match to be restarted after having won the match? Only time will tell!

After a Dynamite loaded with storyline next-steps and resets, Collision has a lot to live up to. Let's all settle in with Elton John and see what happens next.

The Eliminator continues to eliminate

Shibata got one of the all-timer Ricochet slaps-on-the-bald-head in history. We all spent the past few days wondering how he'd work it into his repertoire, and baby, he did not disappoint. Masterful stuff.

The match itself was fine but was neither Ricochet or Shibata's best work. Ricochet got the win through dirty means, using the ropes for leverage on a pinfall. On this St. Patrick's Day weekend, it was clear Ric O'Chet had the luck of the Irish on his side.

Mark Davis has the ideal pro-wrestler body type and Nigel McGuinness is fully aware of this. Tonight, he made reference to Davis "big fat dumper", which Davis used exceedingly well in flattening Briscoe with multiple sentons tonight. Give me a roster full of guys built like Davis, JD Drake, Evil Uno, and Big Beef.

They don't share an in-ring style, but I've been thinking a lot about Scott Norton lately and Davis is maybe the most Norton-esque physically in AEW and I appreciate that.

The crowd woke up quite a bit more for Briscoe/Davis than they did for Ricochet/Shibata and with the help of Murder Machines and his own big fat dumper, Davis pulled out the win over Briscoe. The Don Callis Family now has a man on the inside: a Family member in the finals of a tournament whose winner will challenge Kenny Omega at Dynasty.

Can Davis move on to Dynasty to try and exact some revenge on Omega for taking the International Title from Konosuke Takeshita at Revolution? I don't see it happening, personally, but every wrestler in the four-way final would have an excellent match against Omega so there's no real wrong way to go.

A tag team main event not without its problems

FTR had an unusually sloppy match with Undisputed Kingdom, at least on the Cash Wheeler side. I'm not sure if it was just a lack of chemistry between Wheeler and Roderick Strong or something else, but I don't remember there being so many missteps in their first encounter a couple of weeks back.

Cash was all over the place for several minutes in this one, having a weird miscommunication in the corner as Roddy charged in and then throwing Roddy face-first into the face of Dax Harwood standing on the apron. I'm not sure how you miss the turnbuckle and hit your partner's face instead, but Cash managed to do it.

Soon after this, Wheeler almost steamrolled the referee charging across the ring and followed that up by getting all sorts of turned around holding Roddy up for a Hart Attack, visibly unsure of which direction he should be facing in the ring.

Odd stuff from a team that is usually perfectly on point.

Aside from that, there was some good visual storytelling in the match. After a Steiner Brothers-esque Doomsday Bulldog from FTR, Dax covered Kyle O'Reilly close to the ropes but made sure to not only hook the leg closest to the rope but to grab the arm closest to the rope as well. A nice callback to the false finish from their previous match that ended (before being restarted) with Dax getting the pin with KOR's foot on the rope.

In the end FTR won the match with a Shatter Machine on Roddy. This match served a couple of purposes: a chance for the teams to put the questions of two weeks ago behind them and, with Daniel Garcia and Adam Cole on commentary, serving as a background to next week's TNT Title rematch between Garcia and Cole.

Post-match, FTR refused a handshake for the second time despite Garcia and Cole, nose to nose, shaking hands ahead of their return bout. Garcia looked a little perturbed at the lack of sportsmanship of FTR but did leave with them when all was said and done.

As FTR were leaving, Wheeler indicated to Undisputed Kingdom that they were one and one now. Perhaps we'll get a rubber match down the road in the form of a two-out-of-three-falls match which should be spectacular if Wheeler is on his game.

Wrapping Up

In a quick backstage segment, Toni Storm essentially accepted the non-verbal challenge of Megan Bayne. Later in the show, Bayne defeated Thunder Rosa in one of Rosa's better matches since coming back from injury.

Bayne kept the pressure on Rosa with an Argentine Backbreaker after the match before Toni Storm made the save. Bayne made short work of Storm, though, dropping her with her Fate's Descent F5 before being run-off by Kris Statlander, who Bayne will meet on Dynamite.

As I said in the Dynamite write-up, I don't necessarily know that it's the right time for Bayne to challenge Storm unless you go for the shock upset and have Bayne win the belt. It feels too early in her run to have Bayne eat a loss, even if it is to the World Champion. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do together.

Lots of squashes tonight, but squashes with a little bit of story mixed into the post-match. After Powerhouse Hobbs squashed Griff Garrison, The Frat House tried jumping Hobbs with The Outrunners making the save. After a Murder Machines squash, Mark Briscoe stopped the duo from doing more damage before needing the help of Powerhouse Hobbs.

In a standby match, Top Flight and Hologram defeated The Infantry and Lee Moriarty while CRU (Lio Rush & Action Andretti) watched on from the ramp. The whole Top Flight/CRU thing has been about as long and meandering as the breakup of The Acclaimed but maybe things will actually start moving again. There are so many fun tag teams in AEW who just get pushed to the wayside, and it'd be great to see teams like CRU, Top Flight, and The Infantry get used more consistently on TV.

All that to say – there are a lot of moving pieces in the AEW midcard which is always a positive!

Next week's Collision is spread over Saturday and Sunday, airing at 11PM at the earliest each night. I will not be writing about Collision next week because I'm an old man who loves to sleep.


Best AEW Matches of 2025

Don't see a match on the list? It's not because I didn't see the match, but because I didn't do a write-up for that show for whatever reason (timing, schedules, etc.). This list is as comprehensive as it can be.

I've also decided to omit squashes from the list since they're just going to crowd space at the bottom.

  1. Toni Storm vs Mariah May: Women's World Title (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  2. Swerve Strickland vs Ricochet (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  3. "Hangman" Adam Page vs Orange Cassidy (Dynamite: January 1, 2025)
  4. Swerve Strickland vs Ricochet (Dynamite: February 5, 2025)
  5. Daniel Garcia vs Mark Briscoe: TNT Title (Collision: January 4, 2025)
  6. Konosuke Takeshita vs Orange Cassidy: International Title (Dynamite: February 26, 2025)
  7. Mercedes Moné vs Momo Watanabe: TBS Title (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  8. Will Ospreay vs Kyle Fletcher (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  9. MJF vs "Hangman" Adam Page (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  10. Konosuke Takeshita vs Kenny Omega: International Title (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  11. FTR vs Kyle O'Reilly & Roderick Strong (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  12. Rated FTR vs Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, & Wheeler Yuta (Dynamite: January 1, 2025)
  13. Roderick Strong vs Jay White vs Swerve Strickland (Dynamite: January 1, 2025)
  14. Toni Storm vs Kris Statlander vs Willow Nightingale (Dynamite: January 8, 2025)
  15. "Hangman" Adam Page vs Christopher Daniels: Texas Death Match (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  16. Toni Storm vs Queen Aminata (Dynamite: February 5, 2025)
  17. Kazuchika Okada vs Brody King: Continental Championship (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  18. Orange Cassidy, Powerhouse Hobbs, Mark Briscoe, & Will Ospreay vs Bryan Keith, Mark Davis, Lance Archer, & Brian Cage (Dynamite: March 5, 2025)
  19. Private Party vs The Hurt Syndicate: Tag Team Titles (Dynamite: January 22, 2025)
  20. PAC vs Komander (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  21. Will Ospreay vs Buddy Matthews (Dynamite: January 8, 2025)
  22. Toni Storm vs Deonna Purrazzo (Collision: January 4, 2025)
  23. Women's Casino Gauntlet (Dynamite: January 15, 2025)
  24. Hounds of Hell vs Konosuke Takeshita & Kyle Fletcher (Dynamite: February 5, 2025)
  25. Bryan Keith vs Will Ospreay (Dynamite: February 26, 2025)
  26. Jon Moxley vs Powerhouse Hobbs: World Title (Dynamite: January 15, 2025)
  27. Swerve Strickland vs AR Fox (Dynamite: January 22, 2025)
  28. Daniel Garcia vs Adam Cole: TNT Title (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  29. FTR vs Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta: Mid-South Street Fight (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  30. Jamie Hayter vs Julia Hart (Dynamite: January 22, 2025)
  31. Cope vs PAC (Dynamite: January 22, 2025)
  32. Jamie Hayter vs Julia Hart (Dynamite: January 1, 2025)
  33. Will Ospreay vs Mark Davis (Dynamite: February 5, 2025)
  34. The Beast Mortos vs Mike Bailey (Dynamite: March 12, 2025)
  35. Toni Storm & Thunder Rosa vs Megan Bayne & Penelope Ford (Dynamite: March 26, 2025)
  36. Kazuchika Okada & Ricochet vs Brody King & Swerve Strickland (Dynamite: March 5, 2025)
  37. Brody King vs Kyle Fletcher (Dynamite: March 26, 2025)
  38. Rated FTR vs The Learning Tree (Collision: January 4, 2025)
  39. Private Party vs Lio Rush & Action Andretti: Tag Team Titles (Collision: January 4, 2025)
  40. Daniel Garcia & FTR vs Undisputed Kingdom (Dynamite: February 26, 2025)
  41. Daniel Garcia vs Katsuyori Shibata: TNT Title (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  42. Daniel Garcia vs Kyle O'Reilly vs Lee Moriarty: TNT Title (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  43. Bandido & Powerhouse Hobbs vs Big Bill & Bryan Keith (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  44. Men's Casino Gauntlet Match (Dynamite: January 8, 2025)
  45. Cope vs Big Bill (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  46. Mariah May vs Harley Cameron (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  47. Will Ospreay & Kevin Knight vs Blake Christian & Lee Johnson (Dynamite: April 2, 2025)
  48. Samoa Joe & Hook vs Kip Sabian & Nick Wayne (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  49. Swerve Strickland vs Clark Connors (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  50. Kenny Omega vs Brian Cage (Dynamite: January 15, 2025)
  51. Hook vs Christian Cage (Dynamite: January 15, 2025)
  52. Julia Hart vs Queen Aminata (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  53. Daniel Garcia vs Lee Moriarty: TNT Title (Collision: March 8, 2025)
  54. Swerve Strickland & Willow Nightingale vs Jon Moxley & Marina Shafir (Dynamite: April 2, 2025)
  55. Brody King vs Lance Archer (Dynamite: April 2, 2025)
  56. Will Hobbs vs Mark Davis (Dynamite: March 26, 2025)
  57. The Outrunners vs Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  58. Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, & Roderick Strong vs Lee Moriarty & The Infantry (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  59. Julia Hart vs Harley Cameron (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  60. Rated FTR, The Outrunners, & Powerhouse Hobbs vs Death Riders & The Learning Tree (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  61. Cope vs Wheeler Yuta (Dynamite: March 5, 2025)
  62. Mark Davis vs Mark Briscoe (Collision: March 15, 2025)
  63. Hologram vs Dralistico (Collision: March 8, 2025)
  64. Mark Briscoe vs Konosuke Takeshita (Dynamite: March 26, 2025)
  65. Cash Wheeler vs PAC (Collision: April 5, 2025)
  66. Kenny Omega vs Blake Christian (Dynamite: March 26, 2025)
  67. The Hurt Syndicate vs The Outrunners: Tag Team Titles (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  68. Max Caster vs RUSH (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  69. Bobby Lashley vs Mark Briscoe (Dynamite: January 8, 2025)
  70. Private Party & Mark Briscoe vs Shelton Benjamin, Bobby Lashley, & MVP (Dynamite: January 15, 2025)
  71. Serena Deeb vs Momo Watanabe (Collision: March 8, 2025)
  72. Orange Cassidy vs Hechicero (Dynamite: March 12, 2025)
  73. Powerhouse Hobbs & Tomohiro Ishii vs Kyle Fletcher & Konosuke Takeshita (Collision: April 5, 2025)
  74. Thunder Rosa & Kris Statlander vs Megan Bayne & Penelope Ford (Dynamite: March 5, 2025)
  75. Kazuchika Okada vs Tomohiro Ishii: Continental Championship (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  76. FTR vs Undisputed Kingdom (Collision: March 15, 2025)
  77. The Outrunners vs Premier Athletes (Collision: March 8, 2025)
  78. Adam Copeland vs Claudio Castagnoli (Dynamite: April 2, 2025)
  79. Ricochet vs Katsuyori Shibata (Collision: March 15, 2025)
  80. Top Flight vs CRU (Collision: April 5, 2025)
  81. Toni Storm vs Penelope Ford (Dynamite: April 2, 2025)
  82. Mike Bailey vs Dralistico (Collision: April 5, 2025)
  83. Jon Moxley vs Adam Copeland: World Title (Revolution: March 9, 2025)
  84. Mercedes Moné & Harley Cameron vs Athena & Julia Hart (Collision: April 5, 2025)
  85. Chris Jericho vs Dax Harwood (Collision: January 11, 2025)
  86. Thunder Rosa vs Megan Bayne (Collision: March 15, 2025)
  87. Wheeler Yuta vs Willie Mack (Collision: March 1, 2025)
  88. Top Flight & Hologram vs The Infantry & Lee Moriarty (Collision: March 15, 2025)
  89. Willow Nightingale vs Penelope Ford (Dynamite: March 12, 2025)
  90. The Acclaimed vs The Hurt Syndicate (Dynamite: January 1, 2025)
  91. Kyle O'Reilly & Roderick Strong vs The Infantry (Collision: March 8, 2025)
  92. Komander vs Dante Martin vs Brian Cage vs The Beast Mortos (Collision: January 4, 2025)
  93. Murder Machines vs The Outrunners (Dynamite: February 26, 2025)
  94. The Outrunners vs Chris Jericho & Bryan Keith (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  95. Hologram & Powerhouse Hobbs vs Brian Cage & Dralistico (Dynamite: March 12, 2025)
  96. Taya Valkyrie vs Harley Cameron (Collision: February 1, 2025)
  97. Deonna Purrazzo vs Harley Cameron (Dynamite: February 26, 2025)
  98. Max Caster vs Konosuke Takeshita (Dynamite: March 12, 2025)
  99. Murder Machines vs Top Flight (Collision: January 18, 2025)
  100. Jeff Jarrett vs Aaron Solo (Collision: January 4, 2025)

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