New TNT Champion Crowned After Violent AEW Collision Street Fight

AEW has a new TNT Champion.

After Adam Cole was heartbreakingly forced to vacate the TNT Championship ahead of All In, Dustin Rhodes swept to championship victory in front of his home fans in Texas.

The victory marked Rhodes’ first singles title win in AEW, and something he never expected at the relatively grand age of 56.

Rhodes claimed the title in a hastily arranged four-way match, including Kyle Fletcher, Daniel Garcia, and Sammy Guevara. However, Fletcher has been targeting Rhodes ever since that famous night in Texas, saying he should be given a one-on-one match for the title as he’d been scheduled to face Cole at the event.

That match came on July 31, and it wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Dustin Rhodes Defeated On AEW Collision

On Collision, Rhodes’ feel-good story came to a stunningly violent end at the hands of Kyle Fletcher and a screwdriver.

During the blood-soaked affair, Fletcher repeatedly stabbed Rhodes in the knee, but only after he’d been slammed onto a pile of thumbtacks. To add insult to injury, Rhodes also threw some of the tacs into Fletcher’s trunks before hitting the Shattered Dreams.

The end finally came when Fletcher landed his Protoplex brain buster onto the tacs. After the match, Fletcher continued the assault, smashing Rhodes’ knee with a steel chair against the ring post.

Elsewhere on Collision, two matches were officially confirmed for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door on August 24 in London, England. At the annual cross-promoted show, Swerve Strickland will challenge Kazuchika Okada for the Unified Championship, while “Timeless” Toni Storm will defend her Women’s World Championship against Athena.

AEW’s most high-profile British star, Will Ospreay, is in a race to be fit for the event after revealing that he’s dealing with a significant neck injury.