The above picture are four of the marquee matches that are so far on deck for the 2023 edition of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door. Two of these matches, on paper, should absolutely blow the roof off of the venue; such could have been said about several of matches on the card last year, but in typical AEW overbooking, they underperformed as far as I was concerned. Regardless, that means two of these matches, in comparison will not be blowing the roofs off of any venue.
If you guessed that those two duds were the two matches in which the AEW world title and the IWGP world title were on the line, you’d be spot on. There is no reality in existence where either company would dare having their world championship going over to another promotion, no matter how collaborative and positive-working relationship exists between AEW and New Japan.
That being said, aside from the fact that there is little logic or even any buildup between the competitors in these matches, there’s little reason to believe that either of these matches will be particularly any good, much less be of any threat of being the show-stealing match of the night for such a loaded card.
MJF is so protected, there’s little reason to believe he’d lose at all this year, much less to Hiroshi Tanahashi, whom I’m coming to the personal conclusion that he’s basically the token jobber to the stars of NJPW, because sure I don’t watch NJPW with any regularity, but I’ve actually never seen him win a match in like, 4-5 years. Him losing to MJF is about as a safe bet as expecting cash to come out of an ATM when you put in your PIN correctly.
And then we have Jungle Boy versus SANADA for the IWGP world championship, and when I saw this one, I’m furrowing my brow and thinking, there’s nobody else on the entire AEW roster that would’ve been more compelling to put in a match against the IWGP world champion??
In all fairness, Jungle Boy is a strong worker, but he’s 175 lbs, scrawny as a shoot of bamboo and can’t even sell the suspension of belief that he can hang in the ring with a stud like SANADA. Off the top of my head, I could think of several other AEW guys I’d rather see have a match with SANADA, but none of them are one of their handpicked pillars or are really known to be tight with the Elite circlejerk to warrant getting the nod.
I mean, these turds might be by design, seeing as how lots of promoters tend to operate under the belief that a crowd has a finite amount of energy to give to a show, and it really is safe to assume that Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay are going to be competing with each other to see which will be the first-ever Ten-Meltzer Star match in history as if it means anything in the long run, but on that same vein why bother having World title matches at all, if it means forcing the booking to include obvious and unexciting matchups?
Initially, I wanted to say that the show should have no titles be on the line, but thanks to the collaborative booking prior to the show, it’s fairly obvious that Ospreay is going to go over Omega and regain the IWGP US title, because Omega had gone over to Japan to take it from him months ago. And if you’re going to defend one, might as well put others on the line, but most definitely the World titles shouldn’t be on the line, because they’re definitely not changing hands.
Or do a champion vs. champion exhibition, but obviously neither promotion wants to see their guy take an L, regardless of the quality an MJF vs. SANADA match could have been.
All the same, it all boils down to the fact that for the umpteenth time, fans like me are left scratching our heads over the confusing booking of AEW. Because make no mistake, New Japan’s name might be on the card as a collaborator, but this is still very much an AEW show, with Tony Khan pulling the strings.
The same guy who brought in just about every former WWE release over the last four years, doesn’t use them, and referee Aubrey Edwards is in a match against Jeff Jarrett’s wife on their flagship television show.
I love the idea of Forbidden Door, but it wasn’t nearly the ultra super show it should have been last year, and I have little reason to believe that it’s going to be really that much of an improvement this year. All of the matches were as predictable as any WWE show, and I was pretty accurate, and on a granular level of my predictions last year, and I’m fairly confident in my ability to predict what’s going to happen this year as well.
MJF will defeat Tanahashi, who doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck about results anymore, as long as the checks keep clearing. SANADA will defeat Jungle Boy, probably cleanly, because he’s still at this stage of his career, where he’s always going to lose the big matches, to further build his career narrative of having to take his lumps before winning the big one, one day. Ospreay will defeat Omega for the IWGP US title because that belt has to go back to Japan, but it won’t be a clean win, and will more than likely involve Don Callis and Konosuke Takeshita, which could potentially be the bridge that brings Kota Ibushi into the picture, since Tony Khan has to have surprises on all of his big shows.
Danielson vs Okada really seems like the only question mark in my opinion, but if I had to guess Okada goes over, because the guy is Randy Orton of New Japan, is very protected, and at this point in his career, Danielson doesn’t really have any issues taking any L’s, as long as he’s allowed to make art in the ring.
As for the rest of the card, who the fuck knows what’s going to happen. The two companies have way too many performers, too many blets in circulation, and because they’ll be constrained by venue time and pay-per-view time, I imagine that there’s going to be a fuck ton of battle royales, six, eight or even ten-men/women matches to fill out the card, and probably be a lot of disgruntled workers and fans at not being able to get on the show or see their favorite performers. I’ve heard that CM Punk might make it onto the show to go against KENTA, whom the two have some light history, seeing as how Punk stole KENTA’s move, and even prevented him from being able to use it when he was in NXT, and there’s been some initial teasing of Orange Cassidy versus Zack Sabre, Jr, for a title-vs-title match.
Regardless of what the card shapes up to be, the initial question really doesn’t change: wtf is AEW doing??
