BRM Reviews the 7/8/2023 Collision (good)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING PROMO- everyone was good, although I didn’t like Punk cutting as promo that was essentially “stay tuned, because I’m going to come out and cut another promo.

CM PUNK PROMO- meh
Punk claiming that tonight’s match against Joe was the most important of his career was ridiculous.
Punk spoke well, but the effusive Owen Hart praise- while I’m sure it was heartfelt- was just not interesting to me.

CM PUNK VS. SAMOA JOE VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURENAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Ricky Starks vs. Will Hobbs (w/QTV)- 6.75/10
Q.T. Marshall interfered to set Hobbs up for the win, but then accidentally distracted the referee while Hobbs was getting the win. Starks came back on won.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Hobbs shoved Q.T. after the match. Aaron Solow tried to save Q.T. but got taken out. Harley Cameron tried to save Q.T., and Hobbs walked off rather than hit her.

When plugging the Tag Team Title Eliminator match, Kevin Kelly said that the stipulation was that if Bullet Club didn’t win, they can’t have a title shot for as long as FTR are champions. That’s not even close to what that stipulation means.

MIRO PROMO- good

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS WILLOW NIGHTENGALE & ATHENA- great
Their match has to be put off because Willow is injured. They built up an Owen Hart Tournament match for Friday instead. They were both great.

BCC VS. THE ELITE VIDEO PACKAGE- okay

BAMBI HALL vs. JULIA HART (w/Brody King)- squash
Apparently Julia Hart is on a twenty-three-match winning streak. Meanwhile, jobbers like Lady Frost are getting shots at the TBS Title, and there hasn’t even been talk of a new challenger for Toni Storm.
Julia beat a larger opponent via submission. She kept the hold locked in after the bell.

MALAKAI BLACK PROMO ABOUT ANDRADE’S MASK- excellent
Finally, Malakai said something useful and coherent! He is doing something to try to recruit and- in his mind- help a wrestler, but we can understand why that wrestler both would find the action insulting nad and wouldn’t trust Malakai.

ANDRADE EL IDOLO INTERVIEW- okay

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE ELIMINATOR MATCH: FTR vs. Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson)- 8.5/10
Nigel is also under the same mistaken impression as Kevin Kelly. Either that, or Tony Khan is using a gimmick match with a well-established meaning in AEW to suddenly mean something else.
Nigel insisted that Bullet Club Gold have already earned a title shot and declared the fact that they were being made to win this match in order to get won to be unfair. Kevin Kelly’s “defense” (and I use that term EXTREMELY loosely) of this was “promoters want more money” (he actually said that phrase), and so if they can get two matches out of this rather than one, they will. In other words, Kevin Kelly is saying that Tony Khan is making Bullet Club Gold earn a title shot they have already fairly earned so that he can promote a second match and get more money. If I were Tony Khan, I’d have marched out there and fired Kevin’s incompetent ass on the spot.
Despite the announcing, this match was excellent. The only blemish was that the stipulation made the winners feel obvious.

SHAWN SPEARS VS. LUCHASAURUS VIDEO PACKAGE- snore
One singles win over The Blade gets Shawn Spears a TNT Title shot, but Julia Hart wins twenty-three matches in a row and can’t get a title shot. No one buys Shawn Spears as a threat, and no one ever will. Just… dump him. AEW keeping Spears around feels like if ROH had tried to keep the Christopher Street Connection or Special K around past when Rob left the company (yes, I know Special K stayed, but only the guys Gabe thought had real potential). They were a part of another era that the company should not fetishize simply because it was their beginning. Some aspects of that were good and others were bad, and part of growing is excising the bad.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH FTR IS INTERRUPTED BY BULLET CLUB GOLD- meh
Bullet Club Gold want a 2-out-of-3 match next week. FTR say okay.

SCORPIO SKY vs. ACTION ANDRETTI- 5.5/10
Andretti has gone from beating Chris Jericho cleanly to being a virtual jobber who doesn’t even get his entrance shown.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe- 7.5/10
This was great, but clearly nowhere near the old magic. Then again, the old magic was based off of a long story that they didn’t have time for here, and the roll-up win by Punk and Joe’s post-match attack are clearly designed to set up a rematch at some point.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Joe offered Punk a handshake. Punk took it… and Joe attacked him. Joe went to get a chair, but FTR came out and made the save.

This was a good show from AEW. It felt a little bare-bones, but other than that, it was solid wrestling and some promos that, while not very compelling, weren’t irritating, either.