AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door
Introduction - Hey hey hey! Thought I'd come back for one more post! I went to Forbidden Door live and just thought I'd do a free form review about what happened and what I thought.
The BUY-IN
Justin Roberts talked about how he went to his first event in Chicago as a kid and so they brought out Negative 1.
I was expecting this to be a squash,. but QT and Aaron put in their most entertaining, competitive performances to date. Either QT is a wizard at being a heel while still pulling off a big dive or he shouldn't be diving, because it looked gnarly and he still got a "You Still Suck," chant for it. Anyway, Goto hit his move and picked up the duke.
Your standard fare big lad match. Archer about necked himself on the dive into the ring and he looked like he took it out on poor Nick.
Another one I thought was going to be a squash, but it turned out to be a highlight of the night. Swerve and Lee just couldn't seem to get it right, a good way to get over their eventual breakup and have the much smaller SG reps get believable offense in. The babyfaces still won. Special shoutout goes to Despy, who really worked the leg with multiple Stretch Mufflers.
While a Danhausen cameo and a chance to sing "Billy Ass and the Ass Boys," with your friends are always appreciated, this kind of made the match more chaotic than it needed to be. The Ass Boys ran to the back, so it seemed like Billy and Caster were the only ones working,, and the Young Boys came in at seemingly random. Billy Gunn is always a pleasure to see live, especially at his age, but this was still the most confusing thing on the card.
Main show
If Jericho's team wins, the JAS gets the advantage in Blood and Guts. If Eddie wins, his team does
Beware all ye Cornette stans who enter here. This match was a wild brawl with a million jillion finishes that went forever, and the crowd ate it up. As wild a brawl as you'd expect to see going into Blood and Guts.
Winner takes all
The story of the match was Dax's injury and heroic comeback. Unfortunately, nobody cares about UE because they've not been presented as anything other than Ospreay's goons, and nobody cares about RPG Vice because nobody thought to give Rocky a mic during the build. Luckily, what landed landed perfectly. FTR may be the best tag team in the world, it's just a shame they were given significantly less over acts to work with.
All Atlantic Championship
The match had two aims, to give Miro a really good showing and free PAC and the rest of Death Triangle from the House of Black feud. It did this in spades with the elimination of Miro and what happened after. I feel like the crowd wanted Miro to win but PAC got a You Deserve It chant at the end because yeah, he does. He's one of the safest high flyers in the company and deserves to be the top of a division. Also I want to see more of Clark, he did well despite his last minute inclusion.
The Sting dive was just as wild without the camera trick. Bucks coming out to Shot 'Em got less of a pop than I expected. ELP got in his Falcon Punch to the dick which made me happy. This was a wild brawl, with plenty of Young Bucks nonsense, and the babyfaces went over.
AEW Women's World Championship
Unfortunately, this was a cool down in a PPV that was in desperate need of one. That said, the crowd was about 50/50 Rosa/Toni. Felt like they're gonna turn Toni based on body language.
IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship
This was, far and away, the match of the night for me. Maybe I'm a dodo-brain, but I routinely forget Orange can work at a high level, and maybe constantly having diminished expectations makes his matches more fun, but damn these guys killed it. My only complaint is genuinely that Orange didn't win. Juice and the Bullet Club got camera time, but considering we were so far to the left we couldn't see the main titantron, we didn't see them.
Post match - UE jump orange and RPG Vice, and, in the moment of the night, KATSUYORI SHIBATA made the save. Shibata being on the Orange Cassidy hype train is an interesting choice, Orange seems like the kind of dude Shibata would make do situps until he was peeing black if he showed up in the LA Dojo.
On a night that was sheer chaos, a long old school professional wrestling contest was more than welcome. ZSJ matches are interesting beasts, because in order to make ZSJ look good, guys have to do sequences that aren't sequences they would ever do, thus stretching kayfabe. Claudio looked right at home doing the long term working of joints. Also, the "teasing the squash" spot at the beginning was great for the live crowd, gave people time to revel in the moment.
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Got to see Okada live!
That said, this was a bit of a weak one. It felt like they were building to something that got all messed up when Cole got his bell rung, and they can't decide whether Switchblade and Cole are enemies to save their lives.
Interim AEW World Championship
The "you fucked up" chants happened because someone got into a big brawl with someone else, and security when they tried to break it up.
This was a great old school match,. with Moxley stepping into his NJPW role as the snarly American heel and Tana of course, playing the babyface. It looked like Mox got busted open hardway, and seeing Tana hit a High Fly Flow on a sitting guy made my entire night. The crowd was for sure exhausted, but the final sequence woke the building up, and that's why Mox is the champ baby.
Post match - The JAS hit the ring followed shortly by the babyface Blood and Guts crew and William Regal. This is why I love AEW, they're building to their next show right away.
Post show - Tony Khan brought out Negative 1 who cut a bit of a promo. Idk what was said because my group and I were trying to find our way out of the building. Also Moxley cut a promo, and apologized to the kid he knocked over in his entrance, checked to see if he was alright .
Final Thoughts
As a live show, All Out 2019 is still the undisputed king. But, AEW shows are still frantic, fast paced, and full of action, which is what matters. I've also been developing my own community on Discord, full of IRL friends and people on Twitter who are looking for a place to belong in the IWC. which is why I've been away from WR, and how I'm primarily choosing to interact with wrestling from now on. Will always treasure the time I spent here, but debating things in forums ain't for this old codger no more.
And with that, NWK out! Maybe I'll see you down the road WR.
The BUY-IN
Justin Roberts talked about how he went to his first event in Chicago as a kid and so they brought out Negative 1.
CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. The Factory (QT Marshall & Aaron Solo) - 5.5/10
I was expecting this to be a squash,. but QT and Aaron put in their most entertaining, competitive performances to date. Either QT is a wizard at being a heel while still pulling off a big dive or he shouldn't be diving, because it looked gnarly and he still got a "You Still Suck," chant for it. Anyway, Goto hit his move and picked up the duke.
Lance Archer vs Nick Comoroto - 5/10
Your standard fare big lad match. Archer about necked himself on the dive into the ring and he looked like he took it out on poor Nick.
Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee vs Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 6.5/10
Another one I thought was going to be a squash, but it turned out to be a highlight of the night. Swerve and Lee just couldn't seem to get it right, a good way to get over their eventual breakup and have the much smaller SG reps get believable offense in. The babyfaces still won. Special shoutout goes to Despy, who really worked the leg with multiple Stretch Mufflers.
Max Caster & The Gunn Club (Austin Gunn, Billy Gunn & Colten Gunn) (w/Anthony Bowens) vs Alex Coughlin, Kevin Knight, The DKC & Yuya Uemura - 4.75/10
While a Danhausen cameo and a chance to sing "Billy Ass and the Ass Boys," with your friends are always appreciated, this kind of made the match more chaotic than it needed to be. The Ass Boys ran to the back, so it seemed like Billy and Caster were the only ones working,, and the Young Boys came in at seemingly random. Billy Gunn is always a pleasure to see live, especially at his age, but this was still the most confusing thing on the card.
Main show
If Jericho's team wins, the JAS gets the advantage in Blood and Guts. If Eddie wins, his team does
The Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara) & Minoru Suzuki (w/Tay Conti) defeated Shota Umino, Wheeler Yuta & Eddie Kingston - 8.75/10
Beware all ye Cornette stans who enter here. This match was a wild brawl with a million jillion finishes that went forever, and the crowd ate it up. As wild a brawl as you'd expect to see going into Blood and Guts.
Winner takes all
FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) (c) [ROH] vs United Empire (Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) (c) [IWGP] vs Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero & Trent Beretta) - 6/10
The story of the match was Dax's injury and heroic comeback. Unfortunately, nobody cares about UE because they've not been presented as anything other than Ospreay's goons, and nobody cares about RPG Vice because nobody thought to give Rocky a mic during the build. Luckily, what landed landed perfectly. FTR may be the best tag team in the world, it's just a shame they were given significantly less over acts to work with.
All Atlantic Championship
PAC vs Miro vs Clark Connors vs Malakai Black - 7/10
The match had two aims, to give Miro a really good showing and free PAC and the rest of Death Triangle from the House of Black feud. It did this in spades with the elimination of Miro and what happened after. I feel like the crowd wanted Miro to win but PAC got a You Deserve It chant at the end because yeah, he does. He's one of the safest high flyers in the company and deserves to be the top of a division. Also I want to see more of Clark, he did well despite his last minute inclusion.
Darby Allin, Shingo Takagi & Sting vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) & El Phantasmo (w/Hikuleo) - 7.5/10
The Sting dive was just as wild without the camera trick. Bucks coming out to Shot 'Em got less of a pop than I expected. ELP got in his Falcon Punch to the dick which made me happy. This was a wild brawl, with plenty of Young Bucks nonsense, and the babyfaces went over.
AEW Women's World Championship
Thunder Rosa (c) vs. Toni Storm - 5.5/10
Unfortunately, this was a cool down in a PPV that was in desperate need of one. That said, the crowd was about 50/50 Rosa/Toni. Felt like they're gonna turn Toni based on body language.
IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship
Will Ospreay (c) vs. Orange Cassidy - 9.5/10
This was, far and away, the match of the night for me. Maybe I'm a dodo-brain, but I routinely forget Orange can work at a high level, and maybe constantly having diminished expectations makes his matches more fun, but damn these guys killed it. My only complaint is genuinely that Orange didn't win. Juice and the Bullet Club got camera time, but considering we were so far to the left we couldn't see the main titantron, we didn't see them.
Post match - UE jump orange and RPG Vice, and, in the moment of the night, KATSUYORI SHIBATA made the save. Shibata being on the Orange Cassidy hype train is an interesting choice, Orange seems like the kind of dude Shibata would make do situps until he was peeing black if he showed up in the LA Dojo.
Claudio Castagnoli vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - 9/10
On a night that was sheer chaos, a long old school professional wrestling contest was more than welcome. ZSJ matches are interesting beasts, because in order to make ZSJ look good, guys have to do sequences that aren't sequences they would ever do, thus stretching kayfabe. Claudio looked right at home doing the long term working of joints. Also, the "teasing the squash" spot at the beginning was great for the live crowd, gave people time to revel in the moment.
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Jay White (c) (w/Gedo) vs. Kazuchika Okada vs Adam Cole vs Adam Page - No Rating
Got to see Okada live!
That said, this was a bit of a weak one. It felt like they were building to something that got all messed up when Cole got his bell rung, and they can't decide whether Switchblade and Cole are enemies to save their lives.
Interim AEW World Championship
Jon Moxley vs Hiroshi Tanahashi - 8/10
The "you fucked up" chants happened because someone got into a big brawl with someone else, and security when they tried to break it up.
This was a great old school match,. with Moxley stepping into his NJPW role as the snarly American heel and Tana of course, playing the babyface. It looked like Mox got busted open hardway, and seeing Tana hit a High Fly Flow on a sitting guy made my entire night. The crowd was for sure exhausted, but the final sequence woke the building up, and that's why Mox is the champ baby.
Post match - The JAS hit the ring followed shortly by the babyface Blood and Guts crew and William Regal. This is why I love AEW, they're building to their next show right away.
Post show - Tony Khan brought out Negative 1 who cut a bit of a promo. Idk what was said because my group and I were trying to find our way out of the building. Also Moxley cut a promo, and apologized to the kid he knocked over in his entrance, checked to see if he was alright .
Final Thoughts
As a live show, All Out 2019 is still the undisputed king. But, AEW shows are still frantic, fast paced, and full of action, which is what matters. I've also been developing my own community on Discord, full of IRL friends and people on Twitter who are looking for a place to belong in the IWC. which is why I've been away from WR, and how I'm primarily choosing to interact with wrestling from now on. Will always treasure the time I spent here, but debating things in forums ain't for this old codger no more.
And with that, NWK out! Maybe I'll see you down the road WR.