After a weekend full of confusion, missing footage, and fans rage-refreshing their streaming apps, the May 17 episode of AEW Collision: Beach Break finally dropped in full on MAXbut now we know why it took so long.
According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the technical nightmare was reportedly due to a corrupted file. Dave Meltzer broke it down: The 5/17 episode of Collision was a mess and nothing has been addressed as to what happened. They aired about 85 minutes of the show and then cut to Black Adam with no explanation.
That abrupt switch left viewers completely in the dark, especially since AEW had promoted the ROH Tag Team Championship main event that never aired on TNT. Tony Khan took to Twitter that night to assure fans the West Coast feed and MAX stream would have the full episode. But as Meltzer noted, It wasnt okay on the West Coast feed. MAX didnt even have the 85-minute version of the show up.
The situation got even messier when promises were madeand missedagain. Then they said it would be up Sunday. Then Monday, Meltzer wrote. The TNT app did put the full version up on 5/19, but it still wasnt on MAX until 5/20.
While U.S. fans were left refreshing MAX in vain, international viewers fared slightly better. Meltzer said, Overseas, the entire show aired on Triller but there were issues with graphics and such on that feed. He added that no real explanation was ever given, though the internal belief was that the whole debacle stemmed from a corrupted broadcast file.
And despite Tony Khans initial tweets, AEW went radio silent on the matter for days. Meltzer pointed out that Khan made those tweets, [but] he didnt say anything about it or what the problem was before AEW on Twitter told people it was up on the app.
Now that the full episode is available on MAX, fans can finally catch what they missedbut questions still remain about how such a major technical failure went unchecked and unaddressed for days.
Was AEWs communication fumble worse than the actual tech glitch? Or do you think this was just a one-time misstep? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let us know how you handled the Collision chaos.
