Matt Hardy believes that AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision could one day create a healthy internal competition for All Elite Wrestling, similar to the one that WWE has created with WWE Monday Night Raw and WWE Friday Night SmackDown.
Matt Hardy arrived in AEW in early 2020 and has seen the promotion grow exponentially. On May 17, AEW announced the launch of AEW Collision, a weekly television show that will be in on Saturday, June 17.
Speaking about the upcoming Saturday show's launch on his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy expressed excitement for the roster to have more opportunities on a show on equal footing to AEW's flagship program, Wednesday Night Dynamite.
"I mean, it's great news for AEW, obviously, because it's going to equate to a bigger income and bigger television rights, which is going to help out the company and going to help the company grow. Also, the company has such a large roster. It's hard to put everyone on Dynamite and Rampage, so these extra two hours are going to help all the talent find a place on the television show. I think that's one of the biggest benefits of it by far," he said.
Asked about the idea of a weekly primetime show on Saturday night, Matt appears very optimistic about the possibilities of wrestling on Saturday night, equating it to the quarterly WWF Saturday Night's Main Event shows from the 1980s.
"I think a Saturday night primetime show could do well," he said. "I do remember, even when I was looking back at some of the history of Macho Man Randy Savage this morning while I was doing cardio, some of his moments on Saturday night's main event, which was obviously a late Saturday night show, but man, I remember how excited myself and my brother would get to watch a Saturday night's main event. So I hope that the Saturday night time slot can recapture some of that magic that Saturday Night's Main Event used to have back in the day. It's something that I really anticipated on seeing, and I really looked forward to watching. So I hope that Collision can do that."
Part of the promotional material for this show included the likes of Miro, Andrade, and Thunder Rosa, all talents that have been away from AEW programming for an extended length of time. Matt Hardy believes Collision and Dynamite will have separate rosters. He feels that, as the brand split between Raw and SmackDown in 2002 did for WWE, respective rosters can create healthy competition within the ranks of All Elite Wrestling.
"My gut feeling tells me it's going to add to the excitement, because I think it's going to be two pretty different rosters. The shows are going to look differently. So I think we could get to a deal where the shows are going to almost compete against one another," said Matt. "I think there's times where when Raw and SmackDown seem very different, and you're like, "Oh shit, SmackDown is better than Raw,' or 'Raw is better than SmackDown.' I think that kind of motivates everyone to work a little harder and be a little better. I think that goes from the in-ring wrestlers to the people behind creative and the people booking the show and whatnot. So hopefully, we have that effect from Dynamite and Collision."
Asked what a brand split brings to the table from a talent perspective when certain friends can be split up between shows, Matt Hardy said he's okay with whatever happens as long as he works with his brother, Jeff Hardy. He isn't worried about being split from Jeff because they are a package deal at the moment.
AEW Collision has also been reportedly linked to the return of CM Punk to AEW. Warner Bros. Discovery recently issued a statement saying that, at this time, he is currently not connected to the upcoming show.
Fans can read the latest regarding CM Punk and Ace Steel's status with AEW at this link.
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