CM Punk’s real world championship doesn’t change hands opposite SummerSlam

Tonight’s (Aug. 5) episode of Collision went head-to-head against WWE SummerSlam 2023. With that in mind, AEW made sure to load up their Saturday night card up with four title matches. With that many championship matches in one broadcast, there would surely be at least one title change, right?

Let’s find out.

The AEW world tag team titles did not change hands in the first title match of the night.

The TBS title did not change hands in the second title match of the night.

The AEW world trios championship did not change hands in the third title match of the night.

The final championship fight of the evening was CM Punk vs. Ricky Starks for the Real World Championship. Starks recently cheated his way to two victories over Punk on Collision, so lifetime babyface Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat was on hand as a special outside enforcer to keep both men honest.

For example, here he is enforcing the outside rules on Punk early in the bout:

The finish of the match saw The Dragon do some inside enforcing of the rules after there was a ref bump. Starks tried to cheat by putting his feet on the ropes for extra leverage during a pin attempt, but Steamboat put a stop to that. This led to Punk rolling up Starks for the win.

Starks snapped after the match and attacked Steamboat, repeatedly punching him on the mat and whipping The Dragon with his own belt.

Punk eventually made the save with a steel chair, but the damage was already done.

And that concluded tonight’s Collision show opposite SummerSlam, with four title matches but no belts changing hands.

Catch up on our Collision live blog right here.