"AEW Dynamite" collided with its sister program, "Collision," on Wednesday night. The last AEW broadcast before Saturday's Full Gear PPV, the show was packed with title matches, title challenges, and lots of table setting for the big night. You can read all about it over on the AEW Dynamite/Collision 11/11/2026 Live Blog.The Wrestling Inc. Staff sat with their feelings and came up with a few things they really liked, as well as a few things they very much didn't. The main event of Collision divided the staff, as the match itself earned praise from one writer, while Queen Aminata's overall handling gave one writer pause. There were also dizzying highs like the National Title match, and worrying lows, like the awkward non-finish to New Level vs. Brodido. As always, the comments section will be open, to keep the conversation going.Without further bloviating, here's the best and the worst of the AEW Dynamite/Collision double header.
If there's one thing you can bank on when it comes to any AEW show, it's a squash match. We've talked about this before: AEW will throw out these random squash matches as a way to justify getting someone on television right before they go and wrestle on a pay-per-view or a marquee TV match. It's a classic formula used back in the territories, and it has worked in AEW before. I mean, some of the most famous matches in AEW history have been squashes, but this was not one of them.We do have to give a shout-out to Wardlow's squash match against Nick Comoroto because there was also no need for that over three hours into a weekly wrestling show. However, it's Persephone that I want to talk about. Persephone has been fuming about losing her AEW TBS Championship to Queen Aminata and still believes the title is hers, resulting in her needing to get some of those frustrations out on a jobber. It's an understandable thing to do, and it keeps Persephone strong with a dominant performance, but compare this to the end of the show.Aminata beats Hyan and Skye Blue to retain her title. Persephone then comes out to clean house, only for Maya World to show up, and it made me ask one question. If you have this segment at the end of the show to set up another three-way at the pay-per-view, then why did we have to feed a jobber to Persephone two hours before? You can do one without the other and still have it work, to the point where I think a lot of people would be happier because it would make the fans a bit happier thanks to the show not being nearly four hours long.Persephone came off more as a heel in the closing segment by attacking Aminata from behind, instead of eating poor Gypsy Mac alive in just a few minutes, which ultimately makes her look very cool because Persephone is just good at this whole wrestling thing. Don't book the squash; just have Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. come out at the end as a surprise and then have Persephone make her first appearance on the show by attacking the champion. Then you can flow into Maya World showing up, the three-way for the Tailgate Brawl portion of AEW Full Gear 2026, and it just comes off better.As I said, I'm not against squash matches at all, but this was the case of one segment being able to survive without the other. Just drop one of the spots and you'll get twice the amount of reward.Written by Sam Palmer
I think it's time AEW put some singles gold on "Speedball" Mike Bailey. Any time he gets a title shot, he absolutely knocks it out of the park, and tonight's match against Tommaso Ciampa for the AEW National Championship was no different. He didn't get the victory, sadly, as Ciampa was seemingly always meant for Ilja Dragunov at AEW Full Gear this weekend, and the powers that be in the company thought, and are probably correct, that the bout needed a title.No matter what, it was an excellent, hard-hitting, back-and-forth bout between Bailey and Ciampa. I don't think it's possible for "Speedball" to have bad chemistry with anyone on the roster at this point. They beat the hell out of one another, with Ciampa splitting Bailey open on the ring steps with a big knee strike early on, a wound that he continued to target throughout the match.He took a heck of a beating, but Bailey dished out his own with two standing moonsault knee drops and the Ultimo Weapon. He just could not keep Ciampa down, and there were so many excellent near falls throughout this bout. Bailey kicked out of the avalanche Project Ciampa, which I really thought was the end of the match, then a knee strike. The second knee strike took him out, however, and Ciampa was successful in his first defense of the gold after winning it from Andrade El Idolo on the Jericho Cruise edition of "AEW Collision."Maybe I was a little zoned out after realizing how much show we still had left to go at this point, but for whatever reason, Dragunov and Ciampa's feud slipped my mind. When the lights went out and then came back up red with Dragunov's metronome on the ramp, I popped. I love the way Dragunov played up the crowd reaction, and the challenge for the pay-per-view without a microphone in hand was great.I'm really looking forward to seeing Ciampa vs. Dragunov at Full Gear, and I fully expect Dragunov to win the National Championship and Ciampa to go off the rails over it. And, while excited for them, I'm still hoping for the best for Bailey here soon, because he just continues to impress, his match quality never slipping. I wouldn't mind seeing him face Dragunov again somewhere along the line, because their match back on the October 21 edition of "Dynamite" was also fire.Written by Daisy Ruth
Queen Aminata is YOUR QUEEN TO BE and main-evented "Collision" in her first title defense. Honestly, I thought Tony Khan was putting her in the main event of the go-home show as a consolation for being left off the Full Gear card, even though they could easily do a rematch against Persephone. Maya World didn't receive a rematch against Persephone after Britt Baker cost her the title.In Aminata's first title defense, she faced not one, but two competitors. She faced her former work wife, Skye Blue, and World's tag team partner, HYAN, in a 3-way. It was a good match, but they could have been separate challengers. Aminata retained and was jumped by Persephone when the dumb babyface was distracted by Britt Baker. World made the save, and we just happened to have a graphic ready for yet another 3-way between Aminata, Persephone, and World.Both women have valid claims to the TBS Championship, and once again, Aminata could have had four challengers lined up for four matches. But Khan loves putting women's champions in 3-ways and 4-ways. If Aminata wasn't so popular, I'd be more concerned that another 3-way this soon in her title reign might mean she was losing. I really hope that's not the case.I don't love that this match is on the Tailgate Brawl. The women's tag titles have often been relegated to this spot, so congrats to them for getting on the main card. But Heaven Forbid, we have three women's title matches on the main card. I know that the other major company has trained us to believe the pre-show isn't as important, and AEW has spent 7 years showing us that it does matter. But why is it seemingly always women's title matches that are forced to be on the pre-show? AEW doesn't always have the greatest optics with women's title matches, especially when it comes to pay-per-views. It's hard not to feel like this match in particular is an afterthought.Written by Samantha Schipman
The main event of tonight's three-and-a-half double bill was a TBS Championship match between Queen Aminata, Hyan, and Skye Blue, just one week removed from Aminata and Blue both going to the extreme inside Blood & Guts. And they certainly made good on the spot.Week after week, all three have been carving their own path through the division. Aminata finally realized her potential as TBS Champion at the expense of Persephone, having gotten better and better in the meantime. Hyan is in the midst of a ROH Women's World title feud with Athena as she looks to stand out next to her former TBS Champion partner, Maya World, and has been increasingly prevalent as a singles talent as of late. Blue has flourished as part of the Triangle of Madness, reigning as STARDOM Trios Champion and embracing the "Violent Little Thing" moniker.With those different traits and dynamics came an interesting mesh in the match. Aminata was the anchor for which Blue and Hyan worked around, each a different flavor designed to pop at different stages of the bout. Blue was the more spiteful and urgent as she sought to break her gold duck in AEW, Aminata was more controlled and seemed to be omnipresent when the moment called for it, and Hyan found her space between their moments, leveraging the established issues between the two and becoming a dark horse for it.There was always something going on for much of the contest no two were alone long enough for the contest to come to an end. It just continued to go blow-for-blow until, when all was said and done, it was Aminata and Blue left in the ring to continue. Aminata took her head off, as is her prerogative as Queen, and secured her title with the winning pinfall.It was sheer fun and certainly worked to establish Aminata as a champion in her first defense. Just a great way to close a really enjoyable show.Written by Max Everett
I wasn't thrilled when I saw that Brodido were set to take on New Level ahead of their Texas Death match for the AEW World Trios Championships on Saturday. I'm never a fan of a company putting on a match with some of the talent involved in a much bigger pay-per-view match on the show ahead of the big event, and tonight was no different.Of course, the in-ring action was going to be good between these two teams, as Brody King, Bandido, Austin Creed, and Kofi are excellent talents on their own, and even better as teams. We got to see just a little bit of that in-ring action, however, and the match never really felt like a match. The whole "referee's discretion" thing in AEW gets old really quickly for me, and I felt that tonight, as well. This started as a brawl, then turned into basically a tornado tag team match, then ended in a no contest and a further brawl, one that didn't involve "Hangman" Adam Page or Swerve Strickland.Things kicked off immediately with Creed and Kofi jumping Brodido. The chaos on the outside lasted long enough that I wondered if things were ever going to officially start, but then Creed and King got in the ring, and the referee finally rang the bell. Creed then immediately dumped King back over the top rope and took him out with a dive, and Bandido and Kofi also took the outside back to the floor.The referee finally called for the bell after Kofi swung a chair at Bandido and the pair started brawling up the ramp. The teams fought to close out the segment, with Bandido throwing around security and Kofi leaping off the stage to send King through a table below. Throughout it all, I was left wondering where Page, who was later seen in a backstage segment, and Strickland were.Of course it had to be a no contest finish, as neither team could afford to lose going into Saturday's match. I suppose it was either book a match that was going to end this way, advertise a match that never got underway, or just plan on a backstage brawl ahead of Saturday. The trios Texas Death match is the bout I'm looking forward to most on Full Gear, so I guess none of these options were going to feel satisfying to me.Written by Daisy Ruth
We've said it countless times in these pieces over the years, but tag team wrestling really is one of the best forms of wrestling there is. When done right, there really isn't anything like it, and when you have two of the best teams of their respective generations going at it for five consecutive matches, which build to a fantastic crescendo, sign me up.Over the past few weeks, FTR and the Motor City Machine Guns have engaged in a best-of-five series that saw all four men pushed to their limits. They both claimed to be the best tag team in the world, which can't necessarily be true since The Young Bucks are the current AEW World Tag Team Champions, but you get their point. They feel like they should be flying the flag for tag team wrestling and being the main representatives of what is one of the strongest tag team rosters around, and after this match on the November 11 episode of "AEW Dynamite," they both deserve to fly that flag.At some point down the line, it will definitely be worth going back and watching this series in one sitting. Not just because it was a very entertaining series, but because there were things in this match that called back to the previous matches to reward those who have paid attention. There was the obvious targeting of Alex Shelley's knee as FTR attacked him after MCMG went 2-1 up on the Fright Night edition of "Dynamite," so both Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler were super focused on butchering Shelley's knee so he couldn't tag in his partner. However, there were more subtle moments like both MCMG avoiding getting thrown into the corner right from the start because that's how FTR have taken control in almost every match, especially the ones they ended up winning.The closing stretch of this one was fantastic too as there was just enough Stokely interference to keep things entertaining. The clock was counting down to tease the idea that it was going to a sudden-death overtime or even a potential sixth match. Chris Sabin hit his first Cradle Shock in AEW, so much of this was great, and it paid off in a great pinfall that saw MCMG pick up the win, the series, and the shot at the AEW World Tag Team Championships.Now we have MCMG seemingly taking on The Young Bucks for the titles, which was a dream match 15 years ago and still is to this day. But both teams deserved to win this series because it has been extremely consistent, very entertaining, and peaked right at the very end like it was supposed to.Written by Sam Palmer
