AEW Collision Preview for September 9, 2023
This Saturday night, AEW returns to Cleveland, OH for a night of COLLISION at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse! With two Grand Slam World Championship Eliminator Tournament Semi-Finals on tap, as well as a TBS Open Challenge, an International Champion defense pitting Jon Moxley against Action Andretti, BC GOLD, and more, this is quite the loaded edition of Saturday night’s premier wrestling program!
The show starts at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT, as well as at AEWPlus.com for AEW’s international fans, so drop by the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from this week’s episodes of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest edition of CONTROL CENTER, highlights from ALL OUT 2023, and so much more!
GRAND SLAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ELIMINATOR SEMI-FINALS…
Roderick Strong vs. Darby Allin
Just look at the two clips embedded above from Wednesday night’s DYNAMITE; love them or hate them, those are four men fighting their hearts out in the hope of challenging MJF for the AEW World Championship at GRAND SLAM 2023 despite the fact they’ve got two more matches to go through after winning this one. For one of them winning was as personal as it was professional, and perhaps that’s what pushed Roderick Strong through his nagging neck injury and onto victory over Trent Beretta. It’s either that, or perhaps Tony Schiavone is right in questioning the legitimacy of said injury given that it’s been months since Samoa Joe first dropped Roddy on that chair. Let’s just say if he’s faking it, Roderick is committed to the ruse as he’s been seen wearing it in hotel lobbies, at the gym, in the locker room, essentially everywhere he goes in public, plus he makes sure to constantly remind people that his neck hurts, that Adam Cole was more worried about MJF’s neck than Roderick’s, and even made a shirt about it that he and The Kingdom proudly sported on Wednesday night.
On the other side of the coin, Darby Allin stated one time that he’s hurting like never before after the Coffin Match at ALL IN: LONDON, and he’s said no more about it since then. He isn’t looking for sympathy or pity, and he isn’t whining to Nick Wayne about their opposing feelings regarding the AR Fox situation, instead he is focusing on the fight on hand, despite the injuries from London, ALL OUT 2023, and this past Wednesday night. For Darby, this tournament is personal in that he has plenty of reasons to want to get at MJF given their history, but that isn’t his reason for competing, rather it’s professional in that he’s never held the AEW World Championship, and running the table on this tournament is the way to get to that goal.
So will it be Roderick Strong or Darby Allin who advances to the finals next Wednesday night in Cincinnati?
ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe vs. Penta El Zero Miedo
On the other side of the bracket is another first-time match, Penta El Zero Miedo versus ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe, and this is somewhat of a parallel tale to that of Strong/Darby. Obviously, after the events of this past Wednesday night, there is plenty of personal in Joe’s motivations to win this tournament and fight Maxwell Jacob Friedman at Arthur Ashe. While it’s far from