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In regard to the debut episode of Collision, the plan has long been to hold the taping at the United Center in Chicago. If the company and CM Punk get everything back on track, that's still the plan. If not, they will look to have the first episode elsewhere. With only three weeks to fill a venue as of Wednesday, my guess is they would not chance having it in Chicago without Punk, because everyone will expect him to appear and assume the entire situation is some sort of work (which as of this week, it was not) so perhaps Jacksonville, Florida at Daily's Place could (and this is SPECULATION on my part) make the most sense.
We are told that the Punk and AEW sides have spoken since Punk was pulled from the Collision announcement, but there's no updates that we've heard yet beyond that.
There was no pre-show meeting this week at Dynamite addressing the new TV series. It was very much business as usual. The talent did receive an email from AEW's Megha Parekh that we are told thanked them for their hard work in helping to bring the new series about and that further details on how scheduling, logistics etc. for talents working that series would be forthcoming.
While he acted on Twitter like he wasn't aware he would be announced for the new series, we are told Andrade el Idolo was actually backstage at Dynamite a few weeks ago as part of the process to return.
Fightful.com reported that Bryan Danielson will be helping with creative going forward. We can independently confirm that and are told he'll be giving suggestions and ideas and has been doing so unofficially for some time, at least since the MJF Iron Man match. The belief is that Ace Steel will, at the very least, be doing the same. Tony Khan remains the booker and will always be the booker as long as there's an AEW.
The belief among some we've spoken to is that the "leveling up" of the AEW International Championship months ago was in part to raise the profile of the title so it can be used regularly on Collision. That's not to say that it will be exclusive to the Saturday night series, just that the idea all along was to ascend it to a more prestigious position.
The following Collision pre-sales are ongoing:
Saturday 6/24 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario in Canada using code SAT02X at this link.
Thursday 6/29 at the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario using code 7XCANS at Ticketmaster.CA.
Saturday 7/22 at The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey using code JHBNYR via Ticketmaster.com.
One interesting note: If AEW holds Grandslam 3 in NYC, which is expected, that will be three major events, two in a stadium, over the course of a one month period for the company, with All In: London at Wembley, All Out and then the return to Arthur Ashe Stadium.
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