Let me start by saying that Forbidden Door has every chance of being awesome. I will be sitting down with a beer and watching. Any card that headlines with the following has no business at all being bad:
Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (Interim AEW World Title)
Jay White vs. Adam Page vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Adam Cole (IWGP World Heavyweight Title)
Hell, they even went ahead and added Tomohiro Ishii, Keith Lee, and the scariest man in professional wrestling (Minoru Suzuki) to the mix over the last few days.
The problem is – and call this an extreme First World problem – the card could be even better. These are the issues with the card as I see it just a couple of days before the biggest cross-promotional event in decades.
Major Injuries
As good as Mox is – and he is very, very good – you can argue he would have been the fourth choice to lead the show from the AEW side if all their stars were healthy. The original match plan was for Tana to face CM Punk, but the ‘Best in the World’ is sidelined for now. Add in that Brian Danielson and Kenny Omega are also both out through injury and you have three men that could be the faces of the show that will be watching on.
To be fair, they have done the best they can to cover for this. Making the Mox/Tana match be for an interim title keeps it interesting and worthy of the main event. The Danielson tease of a “hand-picked” replacement opens the door for an interesting surprise (Johnny Gargano to AEW confirmed..) and there are rumblings that Omega could still show up at the event and face Jay White for the IWGP strap in an all-time bait and switch.
Even so, the missing stars make the show feel a touch empty. Especially when you also consider that Kota Ibushi – the man NJPW should be being built around – is also missing and injured.
Where is Naito?
Comfortably the biggest issue I have with the New Japan side of things is the complete underuse on the card of LIJ. Sure, Sanada just got back from an injury of his own, but not finding a spot on the card for Tetsuya Naito is borderline criminal.
Naito is certainly an enigma – his character almost holds him back in that way sometimes with him being too tranquilo in the ring – but working boots Naito is still better than most of the names on this card. There is even an inbuilt story with Andrade El Idolo based on their Los Ingobernables history. I don’t get it.
Shingo and Hiromu are at least on the card, and their eight-man tag with Sting and Darby has plenty of potential. Even so, it feels like a waste to not have the group in full (poor BUSHI).
No love for the juniors
On a card that is supposed to celebrate everything about these two companies, it would have been nice to see a high-end junior heavyweight match. Kushida just returned to Japan and his eventual feud with Taiji Ishimori will be great. Either would have added to this card in a singles match with a Jungle Boy or a Darby or one of the dozen other guys on the AEW roster that fit the mold of an NJPW junior.
I kind of feel this way about the women’s match on the card too. I know New Japan doesn’t have a women’s division, but they have partnered with Stardom in the past and instead of an AEW Women’s World Title match here it would have been nice to see a third promotion added to the crossover for just one match.
There is plenty to love about this lineup and I will be watching. If Naito doesn’t show, however, I will riot.
Always remember folks. Pro Wrestling is Real.
