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

2. Mild Progress For The Women, Excellence From Serena Deeb

They may have both been relatively short and designed to be dominant wins, but for what is the first time ever, AEW Collision featured two women's matches.

Now, ordinarily that wouldn't be seen as a major deal, yet the utilisation of its female talent is a long-standing problem of AEW programming. By that, the ladies tend to have one match per show, stuck in the same spot on the line-up, and often with a picture-in-picture commercial stuck in the middle of it.

Yes, Mariah May vs. Lady Frost did feature a picture-in-picture ad, but the simple fact of there being two contests for the AEW women should be seen as some sort of mild progress - which may well be a backhanded compliment to AEW booking.

While Frost can be such a fun talent to watch - full of extreme athleticism, snug strikes, and tight suplexes - clearly this bout was about giving a strong win to Mariah May in only her second AEW match. As such, May got a fairly straightforward W after hitting her May Day finish, although Frost did got moments to impress. That said, it didn't help that Tony Schiavone referred to Lady Frost as Lady Storm on several occasions, but that seemed to be restricted to just the picture-in-picture portion of the bout.

As for that second women's match, that was Serena Deeb's first match since October 2022. Deeb is one of the very best in the game, and so it was great to see her back between the ropes and putting away Robyn Renegade in quick fashion, hitting the Deebtox before tapping Renegade out with the Serenity Lock. Robyn could've maybe sold the post-tap impact of that hold rather than immediately exiting the ring, but that's a small gripe - especially as the greater focus was on Deeb cutting an excellent promo to reintroduce herself and put the women's division on notice.

Welcome back, Professor. You've been very much missed.

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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.