Former Wrestleview Editor-In-Chief Adam Martin attended last Saturday’s AEW Collision, which took place from the Alliant Energy Powerhouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Below is Adam’s live report.
Before I begin, hello to everyone who is visiting and supporting Wrestleview.com to this day. It’s been five years since my departure from this website and the time flew by! Please continue to support wrestling media. It’s a thankless job at times and showing your support means a lot to the staff.
This past Saturday night, I had the opportunity to attend a live AEW Collision TV taping in my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This was a very rare shot to see some live wrestling TV at an arena most made famous as the host of the inaugural nWo/WCW Souled Out PPV back in 1997. It’s become a destination for mainly WWE house shows in the last few decades and that’s about it.
The one negative was the lack of advertising/card for this show. Personally, this wasn’t a huge problem as I’m not an avid AEW television viewer (my wrestling view is extremely causal these days). However, I could hear many discussions from fans in attendance at how disappointed they were with the lack of advertising. If you didn’t follow AEW on X, you had no idea what to expect after buying a ticket or even walking up. On top of that, AEW advertised a ton of people on the poster and exactly zero made an appearance.
Despite the advertising flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience on Saturday night. Of course I may be a tad biased as I was able to snag front row seats and the experience that close is something every wrestling fan should experience. I was very impressed with AEW’s production and everything ran very smooth. Bobby Cruise did a great job all night keeping the fans entertained in between matches or commercial breaks for TNT.
It was wild to be on TV all night! Hopefully you were able to spot my buddies Devin and Nathan in the front row. Nathan went hard and dressed up as The Outrunners. They even stopped for a fun pose post-show!
Here’s a quick breakdown of some of my pros/cons of the evening.
Pros-
– The Outrunners are an incredibly fun tag team and by far the highlight of the night. Not only is the gimmick hilarious and entertaining, but they are solid in the ring! That’s definitely a team that needs a run with the tag team titles in AEW.
– FTR is still by far one of the best tag teams going today. I hadn’t seen them wrestle for over a year and they don’t miss a beat in the ring.
– Despite the sign held near me, Anna Jay has definitely improved.
– Ricochet vs. Lio Rush was a fun TV match.
– Penelope Ford has huge upside.
– Jay White was another highlight of the night. Juice Robinson was hilarious at ringside getting the crowd involved.
– Shane Taylor has some big upside as a heel.
– JD Drake was also very entertaining during the ROH tapings.
Cons-
– Lack of advertising.
– Backstage promos were brutal at times.
I will definitely catch another AEW taping if they come back to town. It was a hot crowd all night and a great venue for television.