CM Punk defeated Samoa Joe in the main event of Saturday’s AEW “Collision” to set up a match with Ricky Starks in the final of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament next week.
Starks had already defeated Powerhouse Hobbs in the opening match on the “Collision” show, avenging his defeat to Hobbs, his former partner, at the “All Out” pay-per-view last year.
It was odd that the history between Starks and Hobbs didn’t get the pre-match hype that was given to Punk-Joe, who we knew, because we were told, in great detail, hadn’t met one-on-one since way back in 2004 in the early days of Ring of Honor.
The schmozz finish giving Starks the win, involving botched outside interference by Hobbs second, QT Marshall, leading to Hobbs breaking with Marshall’s faction, sets up a number of interesting possibilities going forward.
In the immediate term, it sets Hobbs on the path to being a face, and puts Starks in a possible career-trajectory-altering match with Punk.
The end sequence to Punk-Joe, in which Punk escaped a musclebuster and got the rollup pin, sets up a rematch and possible longer-term program between the two that has been rumored for months.
The post-match saw Joe goad Punk into a handshake, then put Punk in a rear naked choke, with FTR coming out to make the save, as Starks walked out from the back to assess the situation on the entrance ramp.
This could be a tease to a Starks heel turn. One way that could be in the cards would be Joe getting his revenge on Punk by causing Punk to lose the tournament final, with Starks reluctantly accepting the help, reminiscent (and I’m dating myself here in bringing this one up) of when a young babyface Curt Hennig reluctantly took the help offered by heel Larry Zbyszko on his way to beating Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA world title back in the mid-1980s, leading Hennig to eventually turn to the dark side.
We could even see a double-turn, with Hobbs trying to intervene to prevent Joe from helping Starks get the win.
I’m probably overthinking things, but the possibilities are there for things to move forward a few different ways to set the tone for future “Collision” stories and feuds.
Quick hits
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Photo: AEW More Miro promos, please. Honestly, we don’t even need to see him wrestle. Just 50 seconds or so each week of him renouncing his god and eschewing the pleasures of his double-jointed hot wife are enough.
- FTR jobbed to Juice Robinson/Jay White to set up a best-of-three-falls rematch on next week’s “Collision.” Again, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler demonstrated here that they get the business better than just about anybody.
- Julia Hart got a squash win. Her look and ring intro are the best in the AEW women’s division. The in-ring work still needs some work, but she’s coming along.
- We’re getting set up for a Malaki Black-Andrade These guys put on some classics in NXT. If their AEW series is anything like what we saw there, we’re in for a treat.
- Scorpio Sky got a quasi-squash win over Action Andretti in Sky’s return after more than a year out of the ring recovering from a leg injury. It’s not good for Andretti that he was introduced as “already in the ring.” He’s gone from getting an upset win over Chris Jericho to being “already in the ring” guy. Yikes.
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Chris Graham
