6 Ups & 4 Downs For AEW Collision (Feb 10 - Results & Review)

by Andrew Pollard

1. Title Shot Aside, A Nicely Worked Main Event

While I'll happily whine and moan about Tomohiro Ishii getting an AEW International Championship shot at a time when focus has been put on the returned rankings system, that's not to say that Ishii and Orange Cassidy didn't put on a brutal, brilliant main event.

As is always the case with Ishii, he laid everything in thick, with Freshly Squeezed his usual great sell job when taking such offense. One particular highlight saw Cassidy take some heavy hits from the Stone Pitbull, firing himself up to make the big comeback, just to collapse to the mat as a mildly concerned Ishii looked on.

For those who don't like Orange Cassidy's particular form of pro wrestling, they'll have likely cringed at several points here. For the rest of us, you can't help but raise a smile at spots such as Ishii hitting OC so hard that Cassidy's hands came out of his pockets. Daft? Absolutely. Entertaining? Absolutely.

This played out in a similar fashion to other Orange matches against opponents in the mould of Tomohiro Ishii - though, really, who is built from the same mould as Ishii? - where he spends the first half of the contest battered, before using his smarts and familiar tricks to eventually gain an advantage over that opponent. In terms of that advantage, after Ishii had survived the Orange Punch and the Beach Break, it was a small package from Cassidy that got the 1-2-3.

Post-match, the Undisputed Kingdom attacked Orange, and Ishii made the save, bringing an end to a Collision that was fairly solid throughout in terms of ring work, but one that maybe fell a little flat at points.

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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.