Julia Hart vs. Willow Nightingale

[8.0] "My Rating: 7.5. Julia Hart received virtually no reaction as she slowly stalked her way to the ring, while Willow Nightingale immediately connected with the crowd, who clapped along to her music as she made her entrance for her first TBS Championship defense. The match opened with dueling "Let's Go Willow" and "Let's Go Julia" chants, though Willow's support quickly proved louder and more sustained, and the fans turned heavily against Julia once she chopped Willow in the throat, booing her throughout most of her offense. Additional boos came when Sky Blue got involved, which flipped to cheers when Harley Cameron appeared and brawled with Sky all the way to the back, and the crowd repeatedly chanted "Willow, Willow, Willow" to rally the champion during her struggles. The story of the match centered on Julia attempting to wear down the bigger, stronger Willow with chokes and submissions between high-impact moves, a strategy made possible by an early Sky Blue distraction that caused Willow to miss a cannonball splash and take a rough bump. The back-and-forth action was strong, with Julia consistently cutting off Willow's comebacks, while also doing an excellent job playing to the crowd and camera--at one point yelling that the belt would be hers and even signaling for the championship before going for a moonsault. My favorite spot of the match, and an excellent one, came when Julia attempted an Undertaker-style rope walk along the guardrail, only for Willow to counter it into an extremely long delayed vertical suplex on the arena floor. Other highlights included Willow scoring a near fall with a Perfect Plex, Julia hitting an Undertaker rope walk into a springboard hurricanrana that Willow immediately answered by popping up and blasting Julia with a shotgun dropkick, and Julia knocking Willow from the top rope with a kick that sent her crashing to the floor via the apron. In the end, Willow Nightingale sealed the win by powerbombing Julia Hart to retain the TBS Championship."

[2.0] "This was a brutal watch. Nothing of much entertainment value occurred during the duration of this match. They seemed like maybe they just lack the chemistry required to put together a good match. Whatever the reason this was not fun and the overall card would've benefited from not having this boredom fest be a part of it."

[4.0] "Man, this should NOT be the first title defence for Willow. I'm tired of Julia Hart getting chances. It's obviously better than their match at dynasty since Julia was literally hurt, but overall it just felt sloppy as hell. But I will say it's better than the average Julia Hart match."

"I love Willow and I think Julia is, to be honest, awesome. She may not be the best wrestler alive, but her personality and visual aesthetic are really strong and I'm rooting for her! Willow carried the match pretty hard, but she almost always does. Such a talented girl! Love her as a champ."

[4.0] "Uninspiring with a handful of poorly flowing moments to balance out the good. Julia never looked a threat and doesn't belong in the singles championship scene given her recent record. Another Collision match which I unfortunately felt was completely miss-able. This also didn't serve to progress anything in the storyline; it felt like a weird place to stick a title challenge in."

[7.0] "After a few matches on this Collision card didn't get the memo to do what they can to win the crowd, these two do. Willow & Julia do good stuff here. Maybe not the best narrative on the show but the action is exciting and fun. And to a crowd that had already seen 15+ matches that night, that's all you can ask for. They were never gonna go for anything with a rich story, just fun action. *I* got to meet Willow, Harley, and OC after and I was kind of starstruck. Unfortunately, I won't let that effect my rating. [***.5]"

[6.0] "Willow was able to carry Julia to a pretty solid match. Julia didn't mess anything up either, so I guess she did her part."

[5.0] "The fifth match of the evening and the fifth predictable outcome, but this one at least had some stakes and a clear purpose. Julia Hart isn't the best wrestler, but I found her more inspired than in her recent tag team performances. Willow didn't have to raise her game to win, but the match was still decent. In-ring quality: 1.25/4. Stakes: 1.5/2. Justification: 1/1. Placement on the card: 0.75/1. Suspense: 0/1. Bonus/Malus: none. Total: 5.5/10. Match watched on Triller TV."

[5.0] "I want to love everything I see both of the these people in, but this didn't do it for me. It was fine, and showcased some improved ability for Julia, but again this was no classic."

[6.0] "Yeah this was actually a pretty acceptable match for a TV title mainly thanks to a massive carry job from Willow but at least Julia did not look to out of place for most of it. I mean i will say it was a lot better than i expected and had some nice moments throughout but was mostly thanks to Willow being so damn good. I thought Julia looked better than she has a lot recently and got some nice moment sin and almost stole the match a couple times with some nice counters like the roll up at the end. Yeah Willow is that girl she led the match and was great doing it and had some nice moments especially that Stalling vertical suplex onto the floor that was really nice and the huge doctor bomb to get the 3. Overall just a standard 10 minute TV match with nothing out of the ordinary (match will get low ratings as people are extra harsh to Julia no matter what) i liked Harley and Skye having a little brawl at ring side as well the standout moment was the suplex on the outside but yeah just a nice 10 minutes. (***)"

[4.0] "Willow managed to do a massive carry job to make sure that the match wasn't "bad", but it wasn't good either. Okay outing with some creative additions to make up for the mechanical limitations. I really wish Willows push had been faster and she was already world champ at this point. Julia Harts career has been severely stunted by being put in a low rep role on tv way too early. She needs to be going to a wrestling school/continue to be trained and get many reps. This title match is not fitting of "where the best wrestle". I genuinely feel bad for wrestlers like her, because it's not just her, and it's not her fault, but I would need to be watching a glaringly limited amount of wrestling to not see how glaringly limited she is."

[2.0] "These two were fortunate that the worst parts of the match happened during the break (they can thank the editors for that), which means a lot of people didn't see the strange exchange where Julia was sitting down and holding on like she was going to vertical suplex Willlow while seated on the mat. A slow and awkward match. Julia needs more time and confidence in the ring. Right now it looks like she second-guesses everything and that leads to her opponent doing the same."

[1.0] "Maybe my most hated AEW match in a long while. Embarrassingly bad. Julia Hart is hands down the worst tv wrestler in the world right now. Her rope running is a joke and she does it constantly. Willow should absolutely buzz saw her but instead they went 10 minutes. This match made Willow look like a joke. That Hart submission segment through the commercial break looked painful for the fans in attendance. Willow clearly felt like she couldn't work how she usually would because of how weak Julia is. The corner slide submission was so bad and another time Willow had to look like an idiot for the spot to happen."

[6.0] "Willow looked good here. Julia definitely has sloppy Lita vibes to go with the Lita pants. It doesn't quite hold up today though."

[2.0] "It's poor, just as expected. Not sure why they want to push this rivarly so much when none of their matches have even reached an acceptable range. Julia Hart had something a couple of years ago but on account of several issues she has regressed and hasn't able to recover what she once had and Willow's cluncky, awkward in ring style isn't enough to save this one from being a dud. TBS title scene has had the same like 4 people the last 3 years and is in desperate need of fresh faces injected into it to give some fresh perspective, Mone holding the title hostage for a year and a half only to drop it to same person caused a massive stagnation and this stale scene in the aftermath shows it."

[5.0] "Willow couldn't even carry Julia Hart to a 6/10 match dude. Julia needs to just go to NXT because she's leagues behind most of the women in AEW"

[7.0] "Julia was someone I once saw a lot of potential in, and I would say she's more miss than hit these days since coming back from injury but this was one of her better efforts in awhile. Willow carried the match well and was great as always. A fun solid match and a nice title defense for Willow."

[7.0] "This was Willow's match but man Willow is so damn good that it worked. Julia tried to nullify the strength/size differential and just couldn't, because the champion's power reserves are just so vast. That stalling vertical suplex from the barricade to the floor kicked ass and I liked the finishing stretch. ***1/2"

[5.0] "About what I expected for a Julia Hart match. This was just fine, nothing offensive, nothing too good. Just passable. Julia Hart truly has not improved in the ring since she's been in AEW and it's kind of sad. Some solid moments here and there but overall just fine. [**.85]"