AEW Dynamite/Collision - 5/6/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

AEW brought "Dynamite" and "Collision" to North Charleston, South Carolina, and while it might not have been the most loaded 3 hour presentation in AEW history, there was certainly plenty to chew on. If you'd like to take a bite, head over to the 5/6/2026 Dynamite & Collision results page.

As for now, it's time to break down the good, the bad, and the downright ugly from this week's double-header. There was a lot to love, like all the attention Darby Allin and the AEW World Title have been garnering, and plenty to hate, like the weird, lumpy pacing to the show. As always, you can keep the conversation going in the comments section.

Enough introductions, it's now time to discuss what worked, and what very much didn't on Wednesday's Dynamite and Collision.

There's not other way to put this: AEW did not have 3 hours of programming. They had roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes, maybe 2 and a half hours, stretched over 3 hours and 10 minutes. Everything felt slow and lumpy, like wading through high, muddy water, with the heat rising in your eyes.

To make matters worse, the AEW World Title Match main event was at the end of the second hour, meaning the last hour was just a slog of "Collision" cool down matches. The promos took too long, and the matches took even longer. The entire thing reeked of padding.

Tonight's AEW programming was a meatball that's mostly made of breadcrumbs, that sits in your stomach like lead. My colleagues have some things they loved from the show but I found it hard to get excited about much. It all felt like it was being done at half-speed.

Obviously, there are various broadcasting and media reasons why tonight's show had to be the way it was, but it is not my job to care about that. It is my job to watch the show and tell you how it made me feel and this show just made me feel bored and strangely full, despite all the empty calories.

Written by Ross Berman

One of the drawbacks to having a pre-ordained path for everything in professional wrestling can come when the seams are visible, specifically as it pertains to plotting those who want each Championship, and especially the World Championship.

The fact of the matter is, everyone should be, as they would be in any other sport, gunning for the top title. Every motion, word, and breath should be with progression to that end in mind. But it doesn't always happen, in fact, so very rarely does it happen with everything kept compartmentalized and sanitized for the benefit of the person telling the story.

So, while I have never been a fan of him winning and holding the title, the fact that everyone is gunning for Darby Allin as of late is certainly interesting and a good sign for the picture. Since beating MJF for the title in April, he has already defended the title each and every week against Tommaso Ciampa, Brody King, and Kevin Knight. And after dispatching Knight tonight, he continued to book up his diary with bouts against PAC this weekend, Kazuchika Okada next week, and a Hair vs. Title match against MJF at Double or Nothing.

Not only does that guarantee three good-to-great matches, but it also reinforces the World Championship as the most sought-after prize in the company. Much like the United States Championship open challenge in WWE, it generates excitement about who the next person to step up to the plate will be. That's without considering the storylines of Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland, one on the path to finally claiming the title and the other on a path to reclaim it.

Everyone credibly wants the title, and it makes all the more sense considering who the champion is; in storyline, they all recognize that after the reign of cherry-picking and avoidance under MJF, in the midst of the reign of a man who doesn't know when to stop, this is the right time to call their shot. It really feels like it's anyone's game between now and the rematch with MJF at Double or Nothing, and it's just making for appointment TV week in and week out.

Written by Max Everett

I've hated plenty of matches in the past for plenty of different reasons. This may be the very first instance that I've ever hated a match simply because there were far too many people present in the ringside area.

I can absolutely understand that Stokely, Cash Wheeler, Tommaso Ciampa, Roderick Strong, and Kyle O'Reilly were present at ringside for Dax Harwood and Orange Cassidy's Double Jeopardy Match, given their respective associations with the two men. However, there was absolutely no reason at all for The Young Bucks, Edge, Christian Cage, The Dogs, and The Don Callis Family to be present. By my count, there were fourteen men just in the ringside area alone, and that's just far too many. With so many people present at ringside, it became distracting from the match as the action progressed, and it was a little hard to focus on what Cassidy and Harwood were doing inside the ring.

The match also had enough stakes going into it, having the Double Jeopardy stipulation attached to it and two potential title shots on the line. I think AEW was trying to go for even more of a big fight feel with the extra bodies at ringside, but it really was unnecessary. I know there was the post-match brawl, and while I maybe would've Edge and Christian get involved in it with Double or Nothing right around the corner, I just didn't think that there needed to even be a brawl in the first place. All in all, this was all just incredibly convoluted and overinflated for the sake of trying (and failing) to make something feel like a big deal.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

It's Wednesday, you know what that means?! It's time for this writer to wax lyrical about how good of a world champion Darby Allin is, how his current AEW World Championship run is better than at least 85% reigns that have come before it, and the fact that he is genuinely one of the best wrestlers in the world but no one can admit it for problematic reasons (Google them, I'm not explaining them here).

Like I said last week, when we knew Darby was getting a run as champion, it wasn't going to last long but it was going to filled with bangers on an almost weekly basis. However, what we didn't expect was the fact that the matches were all going to be so varied and different. The match with Tommaso Ciampa felt like a violent war where Darby was proving that he can and would do anything possible to retain his title against a grizzled veteran. The match with Brody King leaned into the tried and trusted formula of David vs. Goliath that Darby has mastered over the years, while also playing off the fact that Darby and Brody are very good friends outside of the ring. This match with Kevin Knight was once again completely different.

Knight is the future of AEW and it's not difficult to see why. His performance was exceptional, particularly the selling of the ankle after the insane Springboard Clothesline to the announce table. He was dragging his leg around to the point where you think "He might have done some damage to himself here," just a masterful selling performance where even the high impact moves didn't seem too out of place. After all, I can imagine Knight practicing a UFO Splash just so his selling can be even more believable.

The spot leading into the ankle selling played into the unique story for this match compared to Ciampa and Brody. What happens when Darby faces someone who is as much of a risk-taker as you? Not only that, but someone whose risks paid off so well in their last meeting that Darby ended up pulling out of the Continental Classic because he was so badly beaten. That was the story of this match and it worked wonderfully. Darby came out selling the tiredness of everything, Knight's performance may have ended in defeat but it put him over massively, and it leaves the chance for a rematch where the two men can take it to an even bigger and more outlandish heights.

It's a hat-trick of fantastic matches for our AEW World Champion so far is his reign. Long may he continue (until Double or Nothing).

Written by Sam Palmer

I am usually one to always love a good stipulation match, especially one as chaotic as Stadium Stampede, but I just cannot figure out why Chris Jericho's feud against Ricochet deserves that particular stipulation. Sure, Jericho had a part in creating (and competing in) the first Stadium Stampede match back in 2020, which was an absolute banger, but this upcoming match at Double or Nothing doesn't seem like it will be anything like that.

Ricochet thought he was smart because the stipulation requires Jericho to find four other partners, but he, Toa Liona, and Bishop Kaun will have to find two people of their own to complete their team. Ricochet mentioned that Jericho had to pay people to provide back up in their previous trios match on "Collision," but in reality, Jericho could just do that all over again, likely no big deal. It looks like he'll have at least two partners, possibly three, in the Hurt Syndicate, the guys who had his back in that "Collision" match anyway. It just doesn't make sense that this would be the first stipulation that came to Ricochet's mind.

The entire feud overall just doesn't fit a Stadium Stampede match to me at all. It's really just Jericho vs. Ricochet, though the latter has two big guys at his side as backup. It feels like AEW is just trying to shoehorn Stadium Stampede in for Double or Nothing, for tradition's sake, and something just feels off to me. Maybe it's because AEW usually isn't a "stipulation for stipulation's sake" kind of company, and it just feels weird.

I have no idea who The Demand is going to get to team with them, but if Jericho has Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP, maybe at least the Hurt Syndicate will introduce a new member. That would at least accomplish something else in what feels like a lot of randomness.

Hey, at least Jericho and MVP must be getting along well enough to continue to work together. And, the match is likely to be a good dose of chaos on the Double or Nothing card by the time the bell rings and a winner is declared. And, in perhaps the most shocking thing of all, Jericho has yet to get on my nerves since returning to AEW, and even though I don't love this, it's not his, or even his character's, fault. Right now, though, I just can't say I'm seeing the vision or just why this match is happening, but I'm happy to be proven wrong in the next two weeks.

Written by Daisy Ruth

For as much as I am a fan of All Elite Wrestling, no television show should ever be three hours long. Two hours is more than doable, one hour doesn't get enough characters over, but three hours is far too long. Just wait until "WWE SmackDown" goes back to two hours and you'll find your own enjoyment oft that show shifting upwards. Whenever "AEW Dynamite" and "AEW Collision" are in these big three hour slow, it's intimidating to get through, and because the real part of the show ends in hour two, the actual main event at the end of the third hour becomes an afterthought...but not tonight.

This is exactly how AEW should be ending these big spring and summer timeslots on TNT and TBS, just a massive party where you can switch your brain off and just let things ride. The Young Bucks are obviously perfect in this sort of a match because they basically invented it in PWG, but the Death Riders have become very reliable in this sort of a match where they individually can really flex their muscles while Jon Moxley makes himself laugh on commentary. Then you have the returning Austin and Colten Gunn, a great sight to see given how injury prone they've been over the past year. They're joined by Ace Austin and his massive thighs, and of course, David Finlay and Clark Connors, The Dogs.

The match itself was extremely fun, and even after three hours of live wrestling (and dark matches that take place before the show), the fans were chanting and singing as if they had just got there, a testament to how good all ten guys in this match were for keeping the live crowd engaged. There have been other "Party Tags" with more fluidity and more memorable moves, but this was consistently going through the gears to get where it needed to go.

This match itself ended with Ace Austin getting the win over Wheeler Yuta which was a nice surprise, if not a little underwhelming considering the Bang Bang Gang needed to get their win back from the Death Riders earlier in the end. However, Austin is already someone who is vastly underrated already in AEW, so seeing him as the winner was a very nice way to close what was a very interesting show. Personally I would have liked Colten to get the win since he was coming back from injury, but Ace is a good choice.

A lovely way to close out the show, and with more of these big blocks of TV coming in just a few weeks, hopefully this is what we can look forward to at those shows.

Written by Sam Palmer.