Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s annual review of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, and for once we actually don't feel weird saying that, because it has now officially been a year since we started doing these columns, and Forbidden Door is now the first PPV that we've loved and hated twice in a row! Now yes, last year we did five things we hated and five things we loved, because we were still trying to cover every single thing that happened on every show, or close to it. These days, we cut ourselves a little more slack, leaving the comprehensive thoroughness to things like our Forbidden Door results page while focusing on what made us feel the very best feelings, or the very worst ones.
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With that in mind, we may not be able to talk about matches like Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Orange Cassidy or The Elite vs. "Scissor Ace,"but we have plenty of hot takes fresh and ready to be served up about the things that we cared about the most. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about AEW x NJPW ForbiddenDoor 2024.
The match between Stephanie Vaquer and Mercedes Mone for the TBS and NJPW Strong Openweight titles made for this writer's favorite of the night by far. In a bout more than worthy of the main event, CMLL wound up boasting the MVP of the night in Vaquer as she won over the indifferent Long Island crowd in attendance; albeit with a little help from their ire towards the Boston native. Mone wound up working the underdog role in the match, telling a story of countering Vaquer's power with her superior speed and making for a unique blend of styles.
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By the end of the bout, though it may have been quite predictable that she would win, Mercedes Mone was visibly rattled by her opponent and the crowd turning against her. She had retained her title but the match was more of a testament to her durability, surviving the bout more than anything else. Considering Forbidden Door is supposed to highlight the pool of talent within NJPW, STARDOM, and CMLL, this match was befitting the label as it brought to light one of the best talent on the planet right now. A great title defense in the bag for Mercedes Mone, and another dream match on the horizon with that Britt Baker tease. That really could have been the main event.
Written by Max Everett
Tetsuya Naito is once again the top dog in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. The wily veteran represents a semblance of stability for NJPW in a year where guys like Kazuchika Okada left and freelancers like Jon Moxley carried the title. Moxley has been a respectful champion, and also a fighting champion, flying to Japan for title defenses though he still draws fans' and wrestlers' ire for not appearing on the smaller shows. Moxley's time as champion was never meant to be long. He's an odd fit, and so heavily involved in AEW programming that it's hard to really see him as the face of any other company. The belt is finally back where it belongs.
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From a storytelling perspective, NJPW's many young upstarts finally have a target they can chase on every single show, after months of complaining that the world champion was elsewhere. Heading into the G1 Climax, having the world champion in the tournament means that losses will lead to future title matches and the kaleidoscopic dance of NJPW booking can continue with -for lack of a better term- the belle of the ball, and Naito always plays that role with gusto. The match might not have reached the beautifully violent heights of Moxley and Naito's Windy City Riot match, but the result is a breath of fresh air for NJPW programming, which has been rudderless without that shiny gold belt to drive stories.
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Written by Ross Berman
Minutes after Swerve Strickland vs. Will Ospreay ended, I immediately began seeing chatter about it being a Match of the Year candidate, and I just really need everybody to pump the brakes on that. I know they did a lot of stuff that looked cool, which is all some people seem to want out of wrestling, but I will be shocked if this match makes a preponderance of MOTY ballots in December. My excellent colleague Max Everett said it himself in praise of this match it was junk food. The short-term high of a sugar rush, sure, but you'll be hungry again in an hour.
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There were a few things that didn't work for me about Swerve/Ospreay, but the main one is that when it got to the finish, it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. At first it wanted to be about whether Ospreay would use the Tiger Driver '91, which he's been conflicted about since his match with Bryan Danielson, but there didn't end up being much there; Swerve countered it, but Ospreay clearly tried to hit it, so he must have gotten over his emotional conflict somehow (how he did this is not clear). Then the match pivoted to being about Don Callis and Ospreay's relationship with the Family, and I guess whether or not he's going to become a violent psychopath, because this guy who's super conflicted about using a legal wrestling move on his in-ring opponent is now apparently considering stabbing a ringside manager to death with a screwdriver because he shoved the leader of the stable Ospreay is barely seen associating with. But the Don Callis thing couldn't be the finish either; instead, the last part of the match moved jerkily into "multiple finishers can't keep a guy down until one of them finally does" trope territory. Any of these concepts for finishes could have worked well individually, but shoving them all in at once just made the match feel like it couldn't decide on a direction. That lack of narrative cohesion is why we're not going to remember this match in six months.
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Beyond that ... I'm sorry, but Will Ospreay didnot need to be protected from a single lossso badly that there was a ref bump, he got a visual pin on Swerve, then he got distracted by Callis and Prince Nana and the screwdriver, andthen he kicked out of a million finishers and it took a million and one to keep him down. Again, you're just doing too much, and I don't understand this thing wrestling fans do now where they think a match is inherently better if everybody is incredibly well-protected during the finish. That gives you the quick fix of "wow he kicked out of another finisher," but it also tends to screw with match flow and pacing, flattening things out and making spots that should stand out in your memory get lost in a haze of false finish dopamine.
AEW is out here pretending wrestling is a serious sport to be taken seriously like the other sports, but they can't even tell a story where the second-best wrestler loses to the best wrestler because he's the best the primary narrative of actual sports. Allowing wrestlers, particularly a top babyface, to lose after giving it their all because they just got beat by a better wrestler allows them to deepen their characters; it allows the audience to see how they respond to failure, which tells you who they are. Protecting a top babyface to this degree just tells us they need the storyteller's help to look good because they don't actually have what it takes.
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Written byMiles Schneiderman
