Three Title Matches Headline Tonight’s AEW Collision in Rio Rancho, Last Stop Before Forbidden Door

The final episode of AEW Collision before AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door is loaded, with three championship matches set for tonight’s show from the Rio Rancho Events Center in New Mexico. The card airs live at 8 p.m. ET on TNT and streams on HBO Max.

The night’s marquee attraction on paper is a tag match that doubles as a Forbidden Door preview. Owen Hart Foundation Women’s Tournament defending champion Mercedes Moné teams with ROH Women’s World Champion Athena to face Maya World and Hyan. The wrinkle: Moné and World meet in the Owen Cup Finals tomorrow night in San Jose, with an AEW Women’s World Championship shot at All In: London hanging in the balance. Their collision tonight comes directly after Moné and Athena attacked World following her semifinal victory over Athena last week, so the animosity is already well established going in.

The AEW World Trios Titles are also on the line when The Conglomeration — Orange Cassidy, Kyle O’Reilly, and Roderick Strong — defend against The Opps: HOOK, Katsuyori Shibata, and Anthony Bowens. The challengers earned this shot with a win on ROH on HonorClub earlier this week. The stakes are high for the champions too, as Cassidy, O’Reilly, and Strong are part of Team Briscoe in a steel cage match at Forbidden Door tomorrow and would naturally prefer to carry the gold into San Jose.

TNT Champion Kevin Knight, who is part of Team DCMJF in that same cage match, puts his title on the line against The Rascalz’ Dezmond Xavier. Knight is working toward a future AEW World Title shot by virtue of his team affiliation, but first he needs to get past Xavier — a seasoned veteran with over 15 years of singles experience despite being primarily a tag competitor in AEW. Fellow Rascalz member Myron Reed fell short against Knight two weeks ago on Collision.

Rounding out the championship action, Persephone defends the CMLL World Women’s Title against Billie Starkz. Persephone, who captured the belt from Moné back in March, has also qualified for next week’s TBS Championship Survival of the Fittest on Dynamite, meaning a big fortnight awaits if she can hold off the former ROH Women’s World TV Champion tonight.

Elsewhere on the card, Chris Jericho returns to action against The WorkHorsemen’s JD Drake after being left bloodied by Tommaso Ciampa on Dynamite last week. Místico and