4 Ups & 2 Downs For AEW Collision (Jan 27 - Results & Review)

Downs...

2. Laissez Faire Officiating Doesn't Cut It

AEW Collision Rick Knox
AEW

Yes, this may well come off as the classic 'old man shouts at clouds' sort of complaint to some, but the opening tag bout was just ridiculous when it came to the officiating.

Truthfully, your writer had to check online to see if they'd missed the announcement that Claudio Castagnoli & Jon Moxley vs. Shane Taylor & Lee Moriarty was being competed under some sort of tornado tag rules. As in, all four men are in action at once, with tags not needed.

In reality, this was simply a standard tag team match; a tag team match where referee Rick Knox couldn't give a shiny sh*t about making sure the rules of the contest are in play. It's not like that's the kayfabe job of a referee or anything, right?

In terms of the in-ring work, bar the slack officiating, the action was solid, with a hand injury making Moxley a target for Taylor's power and striking and Moriarty's fluid technical stylings, and also allowing for Claudio to be isolated. And while AEW is famous - or should that be infamous? - for how lax their referees can be, Knox was on particularly bad form here in that regard.

Sure, commentator Kevin Kelly can make mention of how Rick Knox is taking a "laissez faire" approach to this match, but that's solely due to how even Kelly was aware how foolish Knox was looking when illegal men were in the ring for long stretches or how the action spent an age on the outside without any even mild threat of a countout.

Blackpool Combat Club picked up the win as Moxley locked in the bulldog choke on Taylor, but for your writer's tastes, the utterly impotent refereeing badly took away from a match that clearly had plenty of bright spots.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

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.