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AEW Collision Recap – 1/3/2026

New Year...same great wrestling from AEW.
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AEW Collision Recap

Hello everyone, and welcome to 2026! I know I speak for many in the AEW fan community when I say I hope the company has an AMAZING year, and that we get to see as many shows as possible! Thanks to timing, Collision was what started out 2026 for All Elite Wrestling, so allow me to present to you my AEW Collision Recap!

We’ll start off with the debut of someone who has been “on the books” for some time now…

For those who don’t remember (and I don’t blame you, in this case), El Clon is the “hacked and corrupted” duplicate of Hologram. Welcome to wrestling. He helped put Hologram on the shelf (kayfabe-wise), and now he’s finally getting his chance to shine.

Behind the scenes, he’s actually an incredibly legit luchador who has done incredible things across multiple promotions, including fighting Hologram when he went by another name and tearing down the house with him. So, when Hologram returns, these two going at it will “feed families,” or so I’m told.

Anyway, I was glad to see him debut at last tonight, and I like the little touches to make it clear that he’s “similar” to Hologram, but different in key ways, such as with the hard slaps he does, or some of the different moves he executes.

Angelico is always fun to watch, and his experience allowed the fans to truly see what El Con is capable of. Yes, it was a quick match, but it had its worth, and they’re setting him up for a match with Kommander next, so that’ll be another great luchador spectacle.

…and now…a word from Jon Moxley.

How does he seem to get even better with each promo he does? He’s just…so good.

Moving on, next up, we had the Time Love Bombs vs. the recent AEW signings of Hyan and Maya World. I’m very happy for this duo, as they work hard, have done great work on the indies, and unlike SOME PEOPLE, are willing to be part of AEW however they can…even if it means being in squash matches.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen tonight, and we got another great viewing of what these two can do.

I look forward to their progress and journey in AEW, and I appreciate the focus on women’s tag team wrestling, as it’s VERY important to keep all three women’s titles “active,” else one of them becoming “irrelevant,” which often happens with the tag belts.

After the Timless Love Bombs victory, Marina Shafir and Megan Bayne teamed up again to face a local duo.

…okay, the “Mega Problems” really is a good name. I’m just saying.

Unlike the previous match, this one WAS a squash match, but that’s okay, overall. It’s possible they’re setting up a women’s tag team triple threat, maybe for Maximum Carnage, and that would be cool to see!

Next up was Komander versus Hechicero. As noted by a promo backstage by Josh Alexander, the winner will face Mark Briscoe next Saturday for the TNT championship! I’m glad they haven’t forgotten about that title, either.

You could argue that this was a great match to have here in Texas, as they’re BIG fans of lucha matches, and this one was definitely that…and then some…

Ouch.

To be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting this match to go as long as it did (based on how some of the other matches went previously), but Tony Khan let them go nuts, and with Komander in the ring, you know some great high-flying moments are just waiting to happen:

Hechicero would win in a really good match, and I’m very curious how he and Briscoe will go next week, strictly from a wrestling standpoint, of course.

After that, we heard from Eddie Kingston, who was now flanked by the return of Ortiz, who wanted to make it clear that Grizzled Young Veterans have a target on their backs now:

And GYV had a response to that later on:

Hey, I’m all for these two clashes, as it keeps the tag team division in the spotlight and brings new challengers to FTR. Oh, and speaking of tag team goodness…the next match was JetSpeed versus Big Bill and Bryan Keith!

…sorry, they didn’t post a graphic for this one, but the match was fun!

It was nice to see the “conflicting styles” of the two sides go to work, and while JetSpeed’s victory was never in doubt (as many want to see them go up against FTR and tear the house down as they did at WrestleDream), it was still fun to see both teams get the spotlight once more.

Alright, this one requires a bit of an explanation, because on Dynamite on Wednesday, they said that this match would be Shelton Benjamin versus Scorpio Sky…but apparently, Scorpio got hurt. He has really bad luck on that front. You have to feel bad for him on certain levels.

So, they swapped in Dante Martin, who easily is one of the best young talents in AEW, and has already proven himself a worthy singles wrestler. But, he was going up against “The Standard of Excellence,” which meant he was going to get HURT. In fact, they even did a bit in the commercial break about Dante “not being enough” to handle Shelton, so he should just give up:

It an interesting way to tell a story mid-match, and while Dante did keep fighting, including hitting the Red Eye at one point, Benjamin was just too much:

Of course, all of this was to set up the match with Jon Moxley on Wednesday, and MVP had plenty to say about that:

Oh, and as if Wednesday wasn’t stacked enough, now we’re getting another Bandido match:

Finally, it was main event time, where Darby Allin would face off against Wheeler Yuta, all so he could get to Pac.

I think people forget just how good Yuta is, at times. Yes, he’s the one who “gets beaten up a lot” in the Death Riders, but he’s proven himself more often than you might think. Plus, he’s really good at accepting the heel role:

This really was a fun match, with all sorts of fun spots and moments, including Darby having to fight off multiple Death Riders, and having to take this massive spot near the end:

Ouch…again! Oh, and did I forget to mention Moxley was on commentary again? Yeah, he came to Arlington just to do that and a promo. Ace of the world!!!

Yet, Darby, ever the endurance expert, was able to push through so that when he got the chance to put Wheeler Yuta away, he made sure to do it definitively:

And with that, my first AEW Collision Recap of the year is complete! What did YOU think of the show tonight? Are you pumped for the first Dynamite of 2026 on Wednesday? Let me know in the comments below!

Dynamite Matches For Wednesday:

  • Jon Moxley vs. Shelton Benjamin
  • Bandido vs. Sammy Guevara
  • Toni Storm vs. Marina Shafir
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A self-proclaimed Nintendo fanboy, born, bred, and Mushroom fed! He’s owned every Nintendo handheld and every console since the SNES. He's got a degree in video game development, is a published comic book writer and an author of several novels!