The Elite and BCC had a match of the year contender! And then Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay
had another match of the year contender! And then Bryan Danielson came out to The Final Countdown
for an entrance of the year contender! Someone call Mark Markerson, because some star ratings
are about to be smashed. This is my review of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2023… in about 10 minutes.
Now, there’s a lot of matches here, so I may go over my 10 minute time limit. I’m sorry to
everyone who is watching this on their phone while having a quick break from work in the toilets.
The Zero Hour saw Swerve Strickland and friends picked up a win over Chaos and El Desperardo in
a fun opener that got the crowd hyped up, Athena advance in the Owen Hart Cup over Billie Starkz,
El Phantasmo proved he was the better Canadian when he picked up a win over
fellow Canadian Stu Grayson in their home country of Canadia, and BUSHI,
Shingo Takagi and Hiromu Takahashi picked up a win over United Empire.
There is an argument to be made that 4 matches on the kick off show is a bit overkill,
but they all did a good job in getting the crowd warmed up for the main show - and it
got me hyped at home to watch it as well. And with Adam Cole being under the weather,
his match with Tom Lawlor got cut from the card which meant that the show didn’t feel as long as
it possibly could have done, even with 13 matches on the card - hold on, 13? No, that’s too many.
But like being in your house in July of 1998, the card for Forbidden Door was Fully Loaded.
And it kicked off with MJF retaining his AEW World Championship over Hiroshi Tanahashi
and his amazing hair. Tanahashi is a magical wrestler. Yeah, he’s not as mobile as he once
was. Yeah, he isn’t the same wrestler he was a few years ago. He is more broken down than he used to
be. But when the lights are on and the chips are down, he knows how to turn me on - I mean,
turn it on. He is a perfect ‘big match’ wrestler. Even with his limitations, this was a tremendously
fun opener. MJF’s heel shenanigans were a good bit of smoke and mirrors, and he got a cheap win
over the legend with a Dynamite Diamond Ring shot. CM Punk continued to enjoy being booed out of the
building in his Owen Hart cup match against Satoshi Kojima, soaking in the split crowd
to create a really good 13 minute match. Punker didn’t play heel here, but he did
play up to the crowd to get them to boo him and cheer Kojima. He copied Kojima’s popping pecs,
he did the Hogan Leg Drop, and he did lariats in the corner while screaming Kojima’s name. And even
though Kojima hit probably the most devastating move of the night - a top rope elbow drop right
in the cock - Punk got the win with a GTS. AEW announced All Out will indeed take
place on September 3rd. Which means that we have All In on August 27th,
WWE’s Payback a week later on September 2nd, and then All Out one day later on September 3rd. These
wrestling companies never think of the poor content creators who have to cover
all this and we should all complain about that loudly. Stop giving up so much good wrestling!
And speaking of good wrestling! Orange Cassidy retained his
International Championship in an 11 sprint of a 4-way over Zack Sabre Jr, Katsuyori Shibata and
Daniel Garcia. Three different champions representing three different promotions,
and Daniel Garcia is also there. It wasn’t just an 11-minute match of pure fun wrestling, though,
it also contained several different story threads. Being the only person in the match with no title,
Garcia was trying to prove himself to show he can hang and be on their level,
it was about the forever feud between Zack and Shibata, and it was a story of Orange
Cassidy surviving once again - stealing the pin after dumping Shibata after he
hit the PK on Garcia. He has now tied Jade Cargill for the most title defenses in AEW,
and his run keeps getting better and better. It’s nice to know that I’m a better fan than
I am wrestling promoter. Because if I was given the task of booking a dream
card for Forbidden Door I would totally have booked Red Shoes vs. Aubrey Edwards. It worked
so well for Earl Hebner and Nick Patrick. He was the ref for our next match, you see,
and my fantasy booking slightly distracted me during the IWGP Championship match between Sanada
and Jack Perry, but I don’t think that’s all on me. The crowd didn’t seem that into it, either,
and Sanada won a relatively short 10 minute match with the moonsault. Really this was all about
the post-match angle, which saw Jungle Boy turn heel on HOOK. He’s so desperate to win a title,
he’s now going after a belt that isn’t even recognised by All Elite Wrestling.
There were some complaints that Eddie Kingston teaming with The Elite and Tomorohiro Ishii taking
on Blackpool Combat Club teaming with Konosuke Takeshita and Shota Umino was really just an AEW
match with added Ishii and Umino. So the bad guys came out to Mox’s Death Rider theme so I guess
they were representing New Japan tonight. The 10 men then had a wild 21-minute brawl
that was also full of wonderful high spots and incredible drama. The whole match was built around
Eddie and his relationship with Jon Moxley and his hatred for Claudio Castingnoli, highlighted
by Mox and Kingston doing the Strong Style chops while around them The Young Bucks and Hangman Page
did dives and moonsaults, and - perhaps the most emotional bit of the night - Eddie saving Moxley
from The Young Buck’s Superkick Party to take the hit for himself. But when it came down to it,
Mox did not return the favour and hit Kingston with a Cutter at the finish. The walking fridge
of a man Ishii scored the win with the Brainbuster on Wheeler Yuta because of course Wheeler Yuta
was pinned. It’s what he’s there for! I loved everything in this match. The
action ruled, the characters ruled, and the drama ruled. This is everything I love in pro wrestling,
and just one of the reasons I love Eddie Kingston so much.
Having to follow that, Willow Nightingale came up short against Mugatu from Zoolander in a
decent TV-esque match that featured all the usual Outcasts shenanigans. This was clearly supposed
to be Mercedes Mone vs. Jamie Hayter, but injures kept that from happening because the world hates
us all. This was good, and both Toni Storm and Nightingale are great, but the match nothing we’ve
not seen before from this division. And then came one of the damndest
things I’ve ever seen. Will Ospeay won back his IWGP
United States Championship from Kenny Omega in an outstanding follow-up to their Wrestle Kingdom
match in January. Now I’ve been saying since January 4th that no match in all of professional
wrestling in 2023 has come within an arse’s roar of beating Ospreay/Omega from Wrestle Kingdom in
terms of being a match of the year contender. It was a flawless and breath-taking match, so
the two had their work cut out for them to step it up for the sequel. And they more than delivered.
With one exception. Yeah, the Don Callis stuff didn’t
work for me here. He was ejected early in the match which was good as it meant we could just
focus on Will vs. Kenny for the majority, but then he came out again and interfered loads
to lead to the finish. All while the ref, who ejected him earlier, did nothing to stop him. I
know some people are also a little uneasy about the Tiger Driver 91 spot, but may I remind you
that Kojima elbow dropped Punk right in the dick earlier in the night which was way more brutal.
Omega’s neck bumps are at least illusion tricks, Kojima just hit him right in the Punkers.
With all that said, like Raw and SmackDown matches being on the same PPV cards, this match was gonna
be phenomenal, and it simply was. It was a brutal affair, with a pissed off Ospreay haunted by what
happened to him at Wrestle Kingdom trying to get his measure of revenge, slamming Kenny’s face as
hard as he could into the announcer’s table cover just as Kenny had done to him back in January with
that table. Both men bled, particularly after Omega DDT’d Will on some upturned
steel steps - playing off the DDT that changed the complexion of their Wrestle Kingdom match.
But a lot of this bout went to Will, who battered Omega from pillar to post after a series of
submissions wore him out - first a Sharpshooter and then a slightly uncomfortable Crippler
Crossface. But it was Ospreay’s disrespect of the Canadia flag that powered Omega up,
hitting a series of V Triggers and getting his foot on the ropes after a screwdriver shot and
Stormbreaker. It looked like it was over when Ospeay hit Kota Ibushi’s finish and the One
Winged Angel, but Kenny kicked out at 1 because he’s the gosh darn best wrestler on the planet and
this match was superb. But there’s only so much punishment one can withstand, as another Hidden
Blade and Stormbreaker finally put Omega down. An exceptional match that I don’t think beat their
Wrestle Kingdom match, but it came real close. Sting, Darby Allin and Tetsuya Naito beat La Sex
Gods and Minoru Suzuki in a sloppy and scary trios match, and then came the main event
of Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada. And yes, Danielson came out to The Final
Countdown which looks like it might have been a one-night only deal according to
Tony Khan who said it cost him the same as a wrestler’s contract. It was so awesome,
and Danielson looked beyond thrilled about it. And then Okada came out and he’s just on
another level of star power. So when these two locked eyes and the crowd chanted HOLY SPIT,
you knew something special was going to happen. And then… it sort of did and sort of didn’t.
I still don’t know what I made of the match. It was good, that much cannot be denied, but
I don’t think it lived up to the potential hype. Perhaps that’s on me as the viewer, and Danielson
breaking his forearm 10 minutes before the end probably didn’t help matters. He admitted in the
presser after the event that the injury did play into the finish somewhat, where Danielson tapped
out Okada after 3 different variations of his LaBell Lock, that last one looking particularly
brutal. The commentators put over that Okada was trying to save himself of injury before he heads
into the G1, but the live crowd wouldn’t have heard that. And they fell into a somewhat stunned
silence. A silence that was a lot of ‘huh, well I didn’t see that finish coming’.
Perhaps it needed a bit of time to find that third gear, but it did go nearly half an hour. I’ve got
to think it was the injury. But, it did make me want to see them wrestle again, so perhaps that
was the idea. Could be a Wrestle Kingdom rematch? But, overall, it didn’t hurt my enjoyment of this
show which was awesome pretty much up and down the card. The trios match and the Women’s match
had their issues, but everything else delivered and, in some cases, over-delivered. So there’s
no score to give this other than 5 out of 5. Myself and Pete Quinnell will be reviewing
the show in much more detail later on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel,
but for now here’s how Pete reacted to The Final Countdown reveal on last night’s live reactions.