By John Moore, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@liljohnm)
I attended the Saturday’s AEW Collision show at the Oakland Arena (f.k.a. Oracle Arena). Part of my curiosity was seeing AEW back at a NBA sized venue, as this is the arena that the Golden State Warriors used to play at before they moved to San Francisco. Another curiosity was to see how the Collision-ROH experience was compared to other AEW shows, as I’ve been to Dynamite and several AEW PPVs. All things considered, I would call this a positive experience overall, and an experience that I don’t mind recommending for others to check out.
For comparison sake, the last Dynamite I went to in the Bay Area at the legendary Cow Palace in Daly City was a negative one. To sum that one up, that Dynamite show was at around 25% attendance, so it felt a bit cavernous. I’ve been to an All Pro Wrestling and New Japan show at Cow Palace too, and those atmospheres were much better because of the crowd size and engagement.
So let’s move on from the comparison, this time they were smart with their seating arrangement. They had the upper deck blocked off as well as most of the hard camera side. They were also only really selling tickets for the camera facing side, which was smart. Floor seats look like they sold well too. I checked out Ticketmaster a few days before and the ticket prices looked to be $30 for regular seats and $60 for floor, which is a good deal.
The crowd atmosphere was positive and it felt like the show drew the crowd that usually attend San Francisco and Oakland indie shows, as they were really familiar with the hometown Powerhouse Hobbs as well as the various local enhancement wrestlers. Hobbs even got an “APW” chant, meaning people were chanting the indie that he was a part of before joining AEW (on a deep roster too. That roster had Penta, Fenix, Cody Rhodes, Eddy Thorpe, Brian Cage, Shotzi, Swerve, Jacob Fatu, etc).
The show was well advertised in the area. Not only were we bombarded with targeted adds on the YouTube algorithm, but AEW also did a huge ad push on local television. The local advertising featured Powerhouse Hobbs, which was smart given he’s the hometown hero, as well as Mistico. As I mentioned in the prior paragraph, the local wrestling fans saw these ads and showed up. Good on them and good on AEW for their advertising campaigns.
In terms of reactions, AEW still struggles to develop new stars, which is something they really need to work on. What really made this stand out was the local enhancement wrestlers getting bigger reactions than the lesser known ROH and AEW talent. Things like Mylo getting a bigger reaction than Billie Starkz, Alpha Zo getting a bigger reaction than Angelico. Wrestlers like Willie Mack or Vinnie Massaro getting good reactions and people disappointed that they lost. We see “local competitors” in all companies, but usually the star power of the regular stars should over-ride the hometown pop. A little character development can go a long way (and I’ve attended post NXT 2.0 arena shows and AEW should take a page out of WWE’s book by trying to do at least a little bit of character development. Even take from the HBK NXT UK playbook with the simplest forms of character development leading to matches that people are hyped to see.
This was my first Collision-ROH taping experience and I was kinda fearing that it would drag. Much to my surprise, it did not. This is where the power of good matches comes into play. Undisputed Kingdom vs. FTR, Swerve vs. Connors, Garcia vs. Cole, Bandito and Hobbs vs. Learning Tree, and most of the ROH matches. All were engaging and were fun to watch. The Undisputed Kingdom vs. FTR and Garcia vs. Cole being the most hype matches of the night.
As far as local wrestlers that I would like to see in other companies, that were featured at this taping, I would like to focus on Mylo and Alpha Zo. Both wrestlers came up through that Hoodslam system and regularly wrestle there. Alpha Zo is one of the busiest indie workers in California, as he is seemingly at every big indie show in the area. Great worker and very charismatic. When I dragged my non-wrestling fan friends to see his work, they liked him.
Mylo is someone I’m a huge fan of. She has a great look and natural charisma. Where she shines in terms of wrestling-ability is her ability to sell and take a beating. That is usually her bread and butter in terms of developing sympathy from the crowd. If she has aspirations of going further in the industry, I could see her being perfect for TNA, hopefully leading to that adjacent WWE pipeline.
While I mentioned that Mistico was in all the advertising, his match got the least reaction from the crowd. It wasn’t even because his match was at the tail end of the tapings as people were even more excited for the Griff Garrison vs. Gravity match right before (By the way, Gravity is one of my pro wrestling wrestlecrap guilty pleasures. I get a kick out of his stupid moon walk as well as him struggling to get out of his space suit before the bell). Tony Khan even got a good pop after the Mistico match. The problem with his match was there were a bunch of random “who are you?” random luchadores, and the match quality wasn’t anything to write home about. It was just a generic lucha match, and the indie fans around here are used to much better work.
Couple more notes. Special props to Arkady Aura. She is a good ring announcer on TV, but this was my first experience seeing her do MC work. She was pretty damn good as the MC for the event, doing great work with fan engagement during the commercial and transition breaks. She also has a great look and confidence to her. If I heard correctly, her birthday was the night before, so that was a wholesome moment.
Overall, I would say that I would attend more AEW shows if this is the baseline experience. By comparison, I would be disillusioned to attend AEW TV shows if they were like my experience attending that Cow Palace show that was dull and booked poorly. AEW was smart to put effort into sectioning out the arena correctly and moving to smaller arenas at some places. It also looked like their local advertising worked out in a positive way too, given that it drew out the local indie fans.
I will definitely always recommend AEW pay-per-views, as I haven’t been to a bad one yet and those shows are always packed. I attended AEW Revolution a few days after that bad Dynamite experience and it was night and day. Revolution was packed and they did well in the current Warriors’ arena, the Chase Center, to fill that thing up.
AEW has to do something to improve their character development, as bell-to-bell action can only take the promotion so far. When the local indies are doing a better job building character than the television promotion, you know there is a need for some change.
Again, though, a positive experience and I hope to see AEW more often in California. As per usual at California indie shows, I ended my night with a California Hot Dog (bacon wrapped hot dogs with veggies). Those dogs cost twice as much as they once did, but it still feels customary after a sporting event or wrestling show. Anyway, I am looking forward to the next AEW show I can attend in Cali. I suggest they hit up the Kia Forum and Galen Center more often, as those have been some great venues for AEW in the past. San Jose State is also another smaller arena that has done well with wrestling crowds and tapings in the past.
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