Special Event: AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door (2022)

June 26, 2022 4:10 PM

Tonight, the United Center in Chicago will host a first-of-its-kind international pro-wrestling crossover event, when stars of All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling will battle each other across multiple contests, with both promotions having championship titles at stake.

Due to a cursed idol's worth of injuries and sicknesses in both companies, the card for Forbidden Door has gone through several revisions since the initial announcement, but as of yesterday, the announced card is:

Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. a mystery opponent of Bryan Danielson's choosing

3-on-3 Match: Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki vs. Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta & Shota Umino

3-On-3 Match: The Young Bucks & El Phantasmo vs. Sting, Darby Allin & Shingo Takagi

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Jay White (c) vs. "Hangman" Adam Page vs. Adam Cole vs. Kazuchika Okada

AEW Women's World Championship: Thunder Rosa (c) vs. Toni Storm

AEW All-Atlantic Championship: Miro vs. PAC vs. Malakai Black vs. Clark Connors

Winner-Take-All ROH & IWGP Tag Team Championships: FTR (c) vs. Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan (c) vs. Roppongi Vice

Main Event: Interim AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley (AEW) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW)

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (12 comments total)

The Buy-In free pre-show is proving that this event easily could have been a two-day event, starting off with:

Hiroki Goto vs. QT Marshall

Nick Cammorato vs. Lance Archer

El Desprado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee -- excellent match!

Max Caster and The Gunn Club vs. some guys from the NJPW Los Angeles dojo
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:59 PM on June 26, 2022

Quote from my friend's Discord: "This entire show is going to be like something I booked in Fire Pro Wrestling when I was high!"
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:11 PM on June 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

After a complete banger of a multi-man match, FTR now holds the ROH and IWGP titles, which is the seventh major tag title they've held in their careers. Time to revive the Expedition of Gold?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:54 PM on June 26, 2022

All of the matches thus far have been multi-man matches, and since most of them didn't have the long-term booking, it relied on the skill of the performers to construct the entire story of the match... and so far it has worked EVERY TIME.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:37 PM on June 26, 2022

The Orange Cassidy/Will Ospreay match was like watching a Jackie Chan fight scene. Just one incredible physical sequence after another done live in front of an audience.

And then after Ospreay wins, the castigo by the heels is interrupted by Katsuyori by-God Shibata, who only recently returned after five years away because of a brain injury caused by an Okada headbutt.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:18 PM on June 26, 2022

So Jay White retains the IWGP HW title, and he actually pushes aside Okada in order to pin Adam Cole instead. Welcome to your downward spiral, bay bay!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:14 PM on June 26, 2022

Actually legitimately surprised Moxley won the main event... I had figured that Tony Khan still wanted a Tanahashi/Punk match, and putting the interim championship on Tana would practically guarantee that.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:48 PM on June 26, 2022

For a show with so many (SO MANY) notable absences it feels pretty remarkable that there wasn’t a single bad match on the card.

It’s sounding like Adam Cole picked up an injury and I’m concerned about Dax.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:01 AM on June 27, 2022

Rumor is that Cole's been working hurt since the middle of the Owen Hart tournament, and he played it up at the end of and after the match so they have a storyline reason he's off TV for a while.

I'm never not going to be mad at punting to Mox, and I'm a huge fan of every version of Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose/Jonathan Good (okay, except the bad post-leukemia heel turn).

This PPV was AEW in a nutshell for me: fantastic in-ring product, storylines that make me sort of shrug and say "Sure, I guess."
posted by Etrigan at 8:22 AM on June 27, 2022

Straight bangers from the buy-in onward. The pop for Claudio just about blew the roof off; it was every bit as big as for Danielson last year. I wondered how many people would be truly into the NJPW stuff since I'd imagine for a lot of the crowd it's all quite new, but once I was there I remembered that it's fucking Hiroshi Tanahashi--you don't need to know a damn thing about him to think he's just one of the greatest fighters to grace the ring.

Now, granted, I'm from the Big E school of wrestling--if the storylines are good, that's fantastic, but I'm here for BIG MEATY MEN BUMPIN MEAT (and also for the high-flying luchador-style equivalent thereof) and boy howdy did that deliver.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:46 AM on June 27, 2022

I love that it took Claudio being on screen for all of thirty seconds for Eddie to make their decade-old BDK beef a thing.

I understand why CHIKARA needed to end but I will never fail to mark for CHIKARA storylines bleeding into AEW.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:52 AM on June 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

Eddie Kingston told me if he ever had to eat lunch with Claudio Castagnoli he'd stab him with a fork

What if they were having soup?
posted by Etrigan at 12:24 PM on June 27, 2022