Forbidden Door, the first pay-per-view crossover event between AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, takes place this Sunday at the United Center in Chicago. The event was a dream for many AEW fans as a sizable chunk of the roster first found their stardom in the 2010s while competing in New Japan, plus the top of its roster could make for some outstanding dream matches. At first, the crossovers between the companies was incredibly sparse with only Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho being allowed to jump between the two. But the talent started to flow in the other direction in 2021 when the likes of KENTA, Satoshi Kojima, Tomohiro Ishii and Yuji Nagata began appearing on AEW programming.
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Tony Khan discussed what it’s like co-booking a show with New Japan’s head booker Gedo in a recent interview with ComicBook — “Yeah, I’ve likened it to Crimson Tide where Denzel [Washington] gets a missile key. So, Gedo and I, generally anything that involves AEW & New Japan, I think we’re both going to have to agree on what the matchup is, and what the ideas are for the show. And in general, that’s what we’ve been doing for over a year now. And it’s worked really well. It started with AEW wrestlers going there and I had some thoughts and ideas about what they should or shouldn’t be doing. And then New Japan started sending wrestlers here later in 2021, and for over a year, the Forbidden Door has gone both ways with wrestlers coming in from both companies and out and working for each other. So it is different when we’re working together like this and it’s been a great collaboration for a long time now with AEW and New Japan, and I like working with Gedo.”
AEW Forbidden Door Start Time, How to Watch
- Date: June 26, 2022
- Time: 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. ET Kickoff)
- Location: United Center, Chicago
- Stream: Bleacher Report
Unfortunately, AEW’s roster was hit hard by the injury bug that has been going around the wrestling industry this summer. That included newly-crowned AEW World Champion CM Punk, who had his title defense against Hiroshi Tanahashi taken away has he had to undergo surgery. Instead of stripping him of the championship, the company opted to start a championship series to crown an interim champion. That will be decided in the show’s main event between Tanahashi and Jon Moxley.
As for New Japan’s top prize, Jay White defeated Kazuchika Okada at Dominion in Osaka earlier this month, then started popping up on Dynamite saying that neither Hangman Page nor Adam Cole would get a shot at his gold. Okada then arrived on the go-home episode of Dynamite to attack both White and Cole, leading to the announcement of a rare four-way match for the championship
AEW Forbidden Door Full Card
- Interim AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
- IWGP World Championship: Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Hangman Page vs. Adam Cole
- AEW All-Atlantic Championship: PAC vs. Miro vs. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Malakai Black
- IWGP United States Championship: Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy
- AEW Women’s World Championship: Thunder Rosa vs. Toni Storm
- ROH and IWGP Tag Team Championships: FTR vs. Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan vs. Roppongi Vice
- Sting, Darby Allin, Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi vs. Young Bucks, El Phantasmo, Hikuleo
- Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki vs. Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta & Shota Umino
- Zack Sabre Jr. vs. TBA
- (Kickoff) The Gunn Club and Max Caster vs. NJPW Dojo
