5 Ups & 2 Downs For AEW Collision (Jan 13 - Results & Review)

by Andrew Pollard

1. A Frantic, Frenetic Main Event

Since launching last June, AEW Collision quickly amassed a reputation for delivering main events which ranged from good, to great, to exceptional Match of the Year candidates. And once again, this week's Collision served up a belter of a main event as FTR and Daniel Garcia took on the House of Black.

In Malakai Black and Brody King, AEW has two people who've been presented as top level singles players. In Buddy Matthews, the company has one of the most underrated, crisp, intense performers in the business. In FTR, we have the greatest tag team of the past decade. And in Daniel Garcia, there's someone whose skillset belies his age, and someone who could easily be a significant player in the wrestling industry for years to come.

The point being, all six guys are pretty darn great, and all six guys brought their A-game here.

From the opening bell, this match didn't let up for just short of 25 minutes. Heck, the action even carried on after the contest, with King attacking Daddy Magic before the babyfaces rallied together to vanquish the nefarious HOB heels.

As for that action, some standout highlights were Dax Harwood's exceptional selling of his knee, Malakai Black teasing the dance spot, Garcia filling in for Dax on the old Power and Glory Power-Plex, Cash Wheeler diving to the outside, Brody hitting his low crossbody to Cash on a ringside guardrail, an exquisite sell job from Matthews after taking a Harwood piledriver, and the brilliant closing sequence which saw Buddy pin Dax after hitting his curb stomp.

While the earlier six-man tag match was hard to get invested in, this main event six-man was the sort of professional wrestling action that has you continuously engaged; fleshed-out characters getting an audience emotionally invested in some terrific, tight in-ring action that delicately told a story.

Lovely stuff.

Also, if the working relationship between Garcia and FTR continues, that's perfectly fine by me. With Red Death being repositioned as a slightly more serious, focussed technician in recent weeks and months, that meshes brilliantly with the all-business mechanics that Dax and Cash have long been. And if Daddy Magic also ends up tagging along for that ride, that's likewise all good, for Matt Menard forever knocks it out of the park with whatever comes his way.

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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.