One of the biggest gripes about AEW Collision - and the wider AEW product - has been its formulaic, tired approach to its female talent.
Week after week, the women's roster would get around eight minutes of Collision ring time, with three minutes of that taking place during a picture-in-picture commercial break. Then, last week saw mild improvement in how Willow Nightingale and Diamante got 12 minutes between the ropes, and so there was a smidge of optimism that maybe the ladies of AEW were to get more time to wrestle on Collision from here on out, or that, even crazier, maybe one day we'll actually get two women's matches.
Sadly, it was very much back to the 'norm' on this week's Collision.
For poor Willow and Robyn Renegade, it was back to the eight minutes of action, three of which were in picture-in-picture.
As ever, the talent involved did well with what they had - even if there was a smidge too much obvious interference from Charlette Renegade - and it was no surprise to see Nightingale pick up the W. What makes this week's Collision even more frustrating, though, is that it was a show brimming with so much filler ahead of All In later today.
That's not to say necessarily it would've been the right call to have Willow and Robyn get a competitive 15-minute match, per se - after all, Nightingale is way higher on the food chain right now - but surely on an episode clearly filled with matches and segments designed to merely take up time and not rock the boat too much before All In, could we have not got a second women's match?
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 day job, 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. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.
