10 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Collision (June 24)

5. The Men's Owen Hart Cup Feels Important

AEW Collision Satoshi Kojima
AEW

This isn't to say that the Owen Hart Cup Tournament didn't feel like a big deal last year, but this week's AEW Collision did a particularly great job of making the men's Owen feel hugely important.

In one short video package, AEW made the men's Owen Hart Cup feel like the biggest thing in the world to those involved in it. Here, we got comments from Satoshi Kojima, CM Punk, Roderick Strong, Samoa Joe, Dustin Rhodes, Powerhouse Hobbs, Juice Robinson, and Ricky Starks - all of whom put over their opponents, put over the tournament, and portrayed a sense of genuine desire at wanting to win the Owen.

So often, we've seen tournaments where they feel run-of-the-mill and with low stakes. Not here. Instead, all eight male competitors did their very best to make the audience appreciate how seriously they're taking this and how hard they're going to fight to win this tourney.

On the other side of the fence, the women's Owen Hart Cup doesn't feel particularly heated up just yet. That said, Collision did see Willow Nightingale cement herself a spot in the tournament semi-finals...

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.