Andrade El Idolo had the best match of “Collision’s” debut episode last week against Buddy Murphy, and the trend continued this week, as he put in an excellent showing against another member of the House of Black, Brody King. Yes, it ended in a disqualification, and yes, it remains a little weird that Andrade came back and started using the finisher made famous by his wife, who happens to work for WWE, but the match itself was hard-hitting and exciting, and the finish worked in the service of continuing the only actual storyline “Collision” really has at this point, which is “Andrade could use some friends to help him fight these murder goths.”

One of the problems with “Collision” debuting two weeks before Forbidden Door is that some of the Forbidden Door storylines are, for obvious reasons, hijacking TV time from this brand new wrestling product. Andrade, however, is immune to this. As a talent who also works for lucha libre promotion AAA, he has reportedly been banned from working Forbidden Door, as NJPW has a strong relationship with AAA’s rival promotion, CMLL (there had been some speculation that Andrade might end up getting some surprise help from Los Ingobernables de Japon, given his history with the faction, but LIJ leader Naito being part of a different feud seems to have put that possibility to bed). He’s almost certainly not wrestling Sunday night, meaning his booking is unaffected by Forbidden Door plans and he can continue telling the simple story of “Hey wait, didn’t I also have a faction at some point, do I really need to form a whole new one?” If he continues having match of the night contenders with the somehow still underused Trios Champions, Andrade could quickly become one of “Collision’s” star attractions.