AEW World Tag Team Tournament Report, Collision 4/6/2024
On a late-night edition of "AEW Collision" that followed Night 1 of WWE WrestleMania 40, the finals of the AEW World Tag Team Tournament were officially set. In the tournament's second semi-final match, FTR defeated Top Flight to keep their hopes of championship gold alive. Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler won the highly-competitive bout with their finishing move, the Shatter Machine.
The result sets up a match for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at the upcoming Dynasty PPV on April 21. In the tournament finals, FTR will take on AEW EVPs The Young Bucks, Matthew and Nicholas Jackson, who defeated Best Friends in the other semi-final on "Dynamite." This will be the fourth two-on-two tag team match between the teams, all of which have been contested for the AEW tag titles. FTR currently lead the series 2-1; the Bucks won their first encounter at Full Gear 2020, but the two more recent encounters have gone to FTR, taking place on the April 6, 2022 episode of "AEW Dynamite" and the 2023 All In PPV at Wembley Stadium. The winner of their fourth bout at Dynasty will also become the first-ever three-time AEW World Tag Team Champions — no other team in the company has more than one reign.
Interestingly, FTR vs. Young Bucks IV is a match that many fans expected after the WrestleDream PPV in October 2023, when the Bucks won a #1 contender's match while FTR held the tag titles. The road since then, however, has been long and winding — FTR shocking lost the titles to Ricky Starks and Big Bill on "Collision"; the Bucks lost their title shot to Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega at Full Gear, a result that became the catalyst for their current heel characters; Starks and Bill lost the titles to Darby Allin and Sting shortly before Sting's last match at Revolution, where they then successfully defended the belts against the Bucks, which led to the titles being vacated due to Sting's retirement. Now, the subsequent tournament has led us all the way around to where we were before: FTR and the Young Bucks, one more time.