This past Sunday, we witnessed AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door live from the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. AEW, running in Toronto, which means Canadian dollars, drew the biggest live gate in its own company history for Sunday’s joint Forbidden Door pay-per-view with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. It was the third-biggest gate ever in Canada. It was the biggest number in North America for a non-WWE show.
The Forbidden Door gate was a distant third in Canada, behind two of the most famous matches in history. WWE, then called WWF, made $3,490,857 for the 1990 WrestleMania headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior. The 2002 WrestleMania featuring Hogan vs. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made $3,846,073. Both shows were held at the much larger Rogers Centre in Toronto, which at the time was known as the SkyDome.
Results From Forbidden Door
AEW World Heavyweight Championship: MJF (c) retains over Hiroshi Tanahashi
Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament Quarterfinals match: CM Punk defeats Satoshi Kojima
AEW International Championship: Orange Cassidy (c) retains over Katsuyori Shibata, Zack Sabre Jr and Daniel Garcia
IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Sanada (c) retains over Jungle Boy Jack Perry
10 Man Tag Team match: Eddie Kingston, Tomohiro Ishii and The Elite defeat Blackpool Combat Club, Konosuke Takeshita and Shota Unimo
AEW Women’s World Championship: Toni Storm (c) retains over Willow Nightingale
IWGP United States Championship: Will Ospreay defeats Kenny Omega (c) to become new champion
Trios Match: Tetsuya Naito, Sting and Darby Allin defeats Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki.
Main Event: Bryan Danielson defeats Kazuchika Okada
MJF folds an Ace, but an impending boom is coming?
The MJF vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match was high-profile for the AEW World Championship. There was never any doubt heading into Forbidden Door, MJF would be walking away with the win. This was due to Adam Cole being recently established as MJF’s next rival on Dynamite. Their first-ever one-on-one encounter ended in a time-limit draw, prolonging the program and keeping Cole in chase mode for a while longer. With the two set to team in the Blind Eliminator Tag Team Tournament, it’s clear MJF vs. Cole is the long-term booking for the AEW World Championship. Whether it be Tanahashi or anyone else, no one will pose a legitimate threat to MJF until the time comes for him and Cole to settle their time-limit draw, with the match likely at August’s All-In pay-per-view.
Another PPV, another successful title defense. Will anyone on the AEW roster stop Orange Cassidy’s title reign?
In the last two PPVs, Orange Cassidy has retained his championship in a 21-Man Casino Battle Royale and, last night at Forbidden Door defeated arguably 3 of the top technical wrestlers in the world. He has defeated everyone in the tier outside of the World Title picture. The next logical step for OC would be to move into a World Title feud with MJF. However, the question is how or when he will drop the AEW International Championship.
Some thought he would drop the title at last month’s Double or Nothing event. Going into this matchup, some thought maybe a victory for Zack Sabre Jr or Daniel Garcia was in play. However, in the end, OC retained in yet another fantastic outing for the champion. With AEW now having three weekly shows, the workhorse champion of the company could go on to defend the championship on Dynamite or Collision. However, the likelihood of him dropping the title now seems scarce. Could a challenger OC already defeated come back and take the title? Compared to the hot potato that is the TNT Championship, the next person to beat OC will be well positioned to elevate themselves while OC goes onto a feud with MJF post-Adam Cole, presumably.
Does The Elite vs. Blackpool Combat Club still head into a Blood & Guts match? If so, who will compete for each team?
Eddie Kingston’s absence from AEW programming this past year has been one of the worst decisions the company has made, after all, he’s done to get over with the audience since his arrival in the company three years ago. Once he went to AEW Dark, followed by Ring of Honor to provide name recognition, outside of his sole purpose of trying to maul Claudio Castagnoli, hardly helped his cause, but his involvement in the electric 10-man tag team match at Forbidden Door indicates AEW has prominent plans for him on the horizon.
The same can be said for Konosuke Takeshita, someone who did have his moments in the match, more so against Tomohiro Ishii, where he laid him out with one strike, which is highly unlikely given Ishii being referred to as the Stone Pitbull. The question remains, does this feud still head into AEW tradition Blood & Guts matchup? With the injury to Bryan Danielson, the soonest we can expect him to return will be AEW All In London, but is that the best place for this matchup? Can AEW pull another eight weeks worth of weekly programming to extend the feud into that match at that event?
Or could we see the matchup at AEW All Out in Chicago on Labor Day weekend? If so, what will the teams consist of? The shoe-ins for The Elite are the Young Bucks and Hangman Adam Page, while Kenny Omega will likely finish his trilogy of matches with Will Ospreay at All In London. Who could take his place? Kingston could find himself in a storyline with Jon Moxley after their encounter in the 10-man tag team match, which saw both men batter each other with chops.
While the Blackpool Combat Club team will consist of Wheeler Yuta and the aforementioned Claudio however, outside of them, if AEW goes the Kingston/Moxley storyline, who will take his place along with the injury to Danielson who will take his place? Could they be replaced by unofficial members Shota Unimo and Konosuke Takeshita? Here’s to hoping AEW finds the right endpoint for one of their better feuds of this year.
What is next for the four greatest professional wrestlers in the world? Omega, Ospreay, Okada, and Danielson.
Whatever way you rank wrestlers in terms of pure wrestling technique, charisma, entertainment value, and match performance, it will be hard to argue that these four men are not the top 4 in complete wrestlers. After all, these two matches were the highlights for many, if not all, wrestling fans once the bouts were announced. We had the second (technically third since both men competed against one another in Pro Wrestling Guerilla in Reseda, CA) between IWGP United States champion Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. The two produced an absolutely violent and blood-fueled outing, filled with exhilarating action and suspenseful near-falls. The only drawback was the excessive amount of interference from Don Callis, whose role in the match could be a sour note in every fan’s mind.
It is easy to forget just how good Omega was in NJPW at the peak of his run in the company. Ospreay has been one of the best highflyers to come out of the United Kingdom, possibly ever. After this match, it is safe to say many will expect the two men to end their trilogy at AEW All In London from Wembley Stadium. It would be fitting as Ospreay entered Omega’s home country of Canada. As for the other two men in the main event of Forbidden Door, whenever Bryan Danielson is on the verge of becoming a background player in AEW, he shows who he truly is and keeps himself in the conversation of the company’s most elite athletes. His dream matchup with Kazuchika Okada lived up to the bill.
However, Danielson had already won the night even before locking up with Okada when “The Final Countdown” by Europe blasted throughout the arena as his entrance theme. Danielson hasn’t walked out to the iconic tune since his Ring of Honor days nearly 15 years ago, and it simply adds another epic layer to his character that wasn’t there before. He went on to have a stellar match with Okada that proved his world-class reputation to be true.
Currently, there are two elephants in the room. Danielson, in the media scrum, confirmed, to which many noticed and hoped for the best, that he broke his forearm during the match after an Okada elbow drop. He stated, fortunately, that he is only out for 4-6 weeks. The other elephant in the room is the ongoing feud between The Elite, which Omega is a part of, and the Blackpool Combat Club, which is affiliated with Danielson. With the feud likely to extend into the summer months, Could we see Ospreay taking the spot of Danielson in the feud as he did walk out with Don Callis, who is one of the lynchpins of the feud between the factions?
Could we see Okada joining The Elite to avenge his loss to Danielson? If you didn’t think this feud could get better here, we are with what could possibly feature the four best pure wrestlers in the world feuding for the remainder of the summer.
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