AEW Collision honors Ted Turner
- AEW turned its May 6 three-hour Dynamite/Collision block into a memorial for Ted Turner, opening in North Charleston with Sting, Tony Schiavone, and a 10-bell salute. - The wrestling tribute carried into the show itself, where The Young Bucks, Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn, and Ace Austin beat Claudio Castagnoli’s side in a 10-man tag. - It mattered because AEW still lives on Turner’s old wrestling real estate — TBS and TNT — making the tribute feel like lineage, not branding.
Wrestling TV was the story here as much as wrestling itself. AEW used its May 6 Dynamite and Collision block to honor Ted Turner, the media executive who put pro wrestling on TBS and TNT and helped make cable wrestling feel national. The gap was obvious — Turner had just died, and AEW is still airing on the networks he built. So the company didn’t just mention him. It built the whole night around that legacy. ### Why was Ted Turner such a big deal here? Turner wasn’t just a famous TV owner who happened to like wrestling. He was the reason wrestling had a long, stable home on Turner networks in the first place, first through TBS and later through TNT, and that history runs straight through WCW to the modern AEW setup. That’s why this wasn’t treated like a generic celebrity memorial — it was about the person who created the platform AEW still uses. ### What did AEW actually do on the show? AEW opened the night in North Charleston with Tony Schiavone speaking about Turner’s legacy and then bringing out Sting, who tied the tribute directly to wrestling’s Turner era. The segment ended with a 10-bell salute, and AEW framed the TNT and TBS titles as part of that same inheritance. Basically, the company made the opening feel ceremonial instead of just sentimental. ### Why was Sting the right person? Because Sting is one of the clearest living links between Turner-era WCW and AEW. In the tribute segment, he talked about Turner backing wrestling when others might have cut it, which gave the memorial some real weight. This wasn’t a random legend cameo — it was a witness talking about the guy who kept the lights on for an entire wrestling generation. ### Did the tribute stop the show cold? Not really — and that was probably the point. AEW kept the memorial serious, then moved back into storyline-heavy wrestling without making the night feel split in half. Collision picked up with title angles around Darby Allin, MJF, and Kazuchika Okada, while the in-ring card kept moving at a fast pace. The show honored Turner, but it also kept doing the kind of TV his networks made possible. ### What was the big Collision match? The standout Collision attraction was the 10-man tag: The Young Bucks teamed with Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn, and Ace Austin against Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia, David Finlay, and Clark Connors. The Bucks’ side won with The Fold, and the match was built exactly for chaos — dives, crowd noise, fast tags, and a lot of moving parts. It was the kind of oversized TV match that keeps a memorial episode from turning grim. ### Why does this matter beyond one episode? Because AEW’s identity is still tied to Turner’s old wrestling footprint. Dynamite airs on TBS and Collision airs on TNT, so honoring Turner isn’t just nostalgia for another company’s past. It’s AEW acknowledging that its current national TV presence sits on the same foundation Turner built decades ago. In wrestling terms, this was less a tribute show than a passing-of-the-torch reminder. ### What’s the bottom line? AEW handled the night like a company that knows exactly where its television lineage comes from. The 10-bell salute gave Ted Turner his moment, and the rest of the show proved the larger point — wrestling is still filling time on TBS and TNT because Turner decided long ago that it belonged there.
