BreakingDown AEW Forbidden Door 2024
Written by: Danny Albers
AEW held its annual event Forbidden Door on Sunday. The concept for the pioneering event is where AEW works with NJPW and CMLL to give fans dream matchups of stars who work for separate companies. It’s an international flair where Japanese strongstyle meets US indies meets Mexican Luchador styles of professional wrestling. Let’s break down each match from the event.
Singles Match: Kyle Fletcher VS Serpentico
Result: Kyle Fletcher wins by pin
Grade: F
Kyle Fletcher is one of the strongest and best workers on this roster. He looks and carries himself like a true star. The best thing that AEW can give a wrestler like Fletcher is Serpentico, and they only gave Fletcher 3-minutes to work. He’s the ROH Champion and should be featured in a much more prominent way.
Four Way Tag Team Match: Kings of the Black Throne (Malaki Black & Brody King) VS Tomohiro Ishii & Kyle O’ Reilly VS Roderick Strong & Gabe Kidd VS Private Party
Result: House of Black win by pinning Private Party
Grade: C
A pretty chaotic match but it was on the pre-show. You have two teams that are temporary tag teams and yet your most promising young team in Private Party were the ones who got pinned. Also, what has House of Black done since being beaten 3-on-1 by Adam Copeland? They just appeared on the show and picked up a victory against 6 well known stars? I felt it would have been a much better ending if Gabe Kidd turned on Roderick Strong, and dropped Roderick in the ring allowing for Private Party to hit a Swanton and win the match. Kidd comes up looking like a strong heel, Roderick could go to Japan and continue the feud, and one of your youngest teams in AEW comes out with a big win. It’s little matches like this that AEW misses these opportunities to put over their younger talent.
Tag Team Match: Willow Nightingale & Tam Nakano VS Kris Statlander & Momo Watanabe
Result: Willow Nightingale & Tam Nakano win by pin
Grade: B
Willow is really coming into her own this past year with AEW, and she and Kris are going to give a really good match when they get to face each other one-on-one.I felt like giving some background on Momo and Tam would have been nice so that we could understand why they were paired with each of their partners. But this match was a treat for a pre-show match. Some really hard hitting moves by Willow and Kris and both Tam and Momo looked really impressive in the ring.
Women’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament First Round: Mariah May VS Saraya
Result: Mariah May wins by pin
Grade D
It is clear that Saraya is not healthy enough to wrestle right now. She’s moving slow as molasses, and she has little malice on any of her moves. And May is solid, but she needs to start developing some moves of her own instead of being a carbon copy of Toni. If the idea is to have her win the Owen tournament and challenge her mentor, she will need some things that are her own in order to get the feud over. As for this match, it was slow, sloppy, and just plain boring. And it’s torture watching Saraya in there especially if you followed her closely early in her career.
Trios Match: The Lucha Brothers & Mistico VS Los Ingobernables de Japon (Yota Tsuji, Hiromu Takahashi, & Titan)
Result: Mistico and Lucha Brothers win by submission
Grade: B
LIJ appearing at Forbidden Door to take on The Lucha Brothers and Mistico felt like another treat that was given to the fans. Tsuji and Takahashi are two of NJPW top stars. Mistico has a great look and he has such incredible ability in the ring. It was a good look for the Lucha Brothers getting such an impactful win, even if it’s on the pre-show. Everyone watching the show knows who at least one of the wrestlers for LIJ are. If Mistico ever signs with AEW, Mistico and the Lucha Bros would make for a great Trios Champions.
Singles Match; MJF VS Hechicero
Result: MJF wins by pin
Grade: C+
This was the first time that I remember thinking that MJF was boring in a long time. This was likely a warm up match since they kept shooting at him in the back watching the main event between Ospreay and Swerve. It’s not MJF’s fault in the slightest. This crowd has no reason to care about Hechicero, and his appearance does nothing to draw you in. His wrestling style of being a submission expert when he’s as massive a powerhouse as anyone on the roster is questionable. MJF did all he could do to make this match watchable, but the booking was lazy. Especially when there was a stacked buy-in card with at least 5 stars who the crowd would have rather seen work with MJF here instead of Hechicero.
Trios Match: The Elite (The Young Bucks & Kazuchika Okada) VS The Acclaimed & Hiroshi Tanahashi
Result: Okada & The Young Bucks win by pin
Grade: D
All the love to Billy Gunn, but thankfully they replaced him for Tanahashi in this match. Tanahashi is in way better shape then Okada, so to make it look like Tanahashi was the broken run down star is crazy. The only broken run down looking wrestlers in this match were on the side of The Elite. From the cringe rap that Max Caster spit to the lack of any selling in this match besides Tanahashi’s worked-injury at the end. I don’t know if there was anybody that was excited about this match, and this is supposed to be your top heels right now. AEW is supposed to be building a top elite unit to face these guys at Blood & Guts?
Men’s Owen Hart Tournament 1st Round: Bryan Danielson VS Shingo Takagi
Result: Bryan Danielson wins by submission
Grade: B+
This was one of the more physical matches on the Bryan Danielson farewell tour. Takagi had some stiff elbows and strikes on his feet. He didn’t hold back and made sure to take full advantage of this spot on a major pay per view in front of a packed American crowd wrestling one of the biggest names in pro wrestling. Danielson had to get creative with his offense as he was obviously outmatched in power and raw striking. He used his technique and submission skills to ground Takagi and neutralize his power. It was a very believable path for Danielson to take in winning this match. He had to use his strengths because Takagi was like a fish out of water when the submission attempts came.
AEW Women’s World Title: © “Timeless” Toni Storm VS Mina Shirakawa
Result: Toni Storm wins by pin
Grade: B-
It’s not the in ring action that bothered me, but how unserious AEW decided to make a feud over the AEW Women’s Championship. But the in-ring action between these two was really good. Of the Japanese women that have made the move to AEW to get some American exposure, Mina is one of my favorite so far. She’s got natural charisma, and her entrance is fantastic. Her and Toni seemed to have a lot of chemistry in this match. My big knock on this match was Toni, Mina, and Mariah all leaving together like one unified throuple after the match. My only hope is that Mariah May wins the Owen Hart tournament, and one of them turns on eachother.
Singles Match: Zack Sabre Jr. VS Orange Cassidy
Result: Zack Sabre Jr. wins by submission
Grade: C+
Sometimes you have to just know when two wrestlers won’t compliment each other well. Zack Sabre Jr. really exposed Orange Cassidy in this match. Sabre Jr, although one of the most overrated wrestlers in the business, is very technically sound. Orange Cassidy is really good in firefights. He moves fast, strikes quick, and really doesn’t know how to sell. He’s most certainly not a submission wrestler. This match moved slowly and it didn’t really catch any momentum. These wrestlers just managed each other instead of complementing one another which is not what you want to see on a pay per view match. I’m not positive what the plan is for Orange from here. He’s lost some really key matches, and he doesn’t really have any direction right now.
Trios Match: Samoa Joe, Hook, Katsuyori Shibata VS The Learning Tree (Chris Jericho & Big Bill) & Jeff Cobb
Result: Hook pins Chris Jericho for the win
Grade: D
Jeff Cobb deserved a better match then stepping in to wrestler with the Learning Tree. And Chris Jericho acknowledging the fans who were chanting for him to “please retire” was pathetic. There’s two types of negative reactions from the crowds, and it’s important that performers identify both. There’s the booking of a heel, which typically comes when fans understand that booing a star is part of a storyline and play along. For instance, Roman Reigns was booed throughout The Bloodline storyline. But when the story was over, and he was walking away, fans chanted “Thank you, Roman!” But this is just not connecting with fans, and it’s not part of any storyline other than Jericho getting back at fans. The only reason why this wasn’t an F was Hook got a win using Jericho’s own elbow on him and looked really strong coming out of this match.
TNT Championship Ladder Match: Jack Perry VS Konosuke Takeshita VS Mark Briscoe VS Dante Martin VS Lio Rush VS El Phantasmo
Result: Jack Perry wins the TNT Championship
Grade: C+
My one big issue was that AEW told you who was going to win this match way in advance after The Elite won at Double or Nothing. There was no build on anyone in this match besides Jack Perry. And a month after Edge blew his leg up by undershooting a table spot, Mark Briscoe goes and does the same exact spot but onto the outside of the ring off a ladder instead of off a steel cage. Dante Martin pretending to once again injure his leg was unneeded. His gruesome injury is something people don’t want to be reminded of. The rest of the match was just a pure car wreck. Bodies taking insane bumps all over the ring. It wasn’t a terrible match, but being that you revealed who the next TNT Champion was going to be, did you really have to destroy 6 young competitors to put the belt on Perry? It’s not that people don’t love the carnage that ladder matches bring. It’s just carnage without reason is careless, and nobody wants to continue to watch your superstars and legends with potential get seriously hurt.
Winner Takes All Match (AEW TBS Champion/NJPW Strong Women’s Champion): (AEW) Mercedes Moné VS Stephanie Vaquer (NJPW )
Result: Mercedes wins by submission to retain AEW TBS Title and win NJPW Strong Women’s Championship
Grade: F
I’m going to start by saying this wasn’t a bad match. Stephanie Vaquer is a legitimate star in the professional wrestling business. Her beauty and power mix remind me of a more athletic and technically sound Victoria. But this was the Mercedes show. It’s not bad enough that they put a TBS Championship on her in just her first match with the promotion. But in the build up of this match, they turned their AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm, a woman who’s built a character as impressive as her championship reign, into nothing more than a lesbian love triangle side show so they can fit in Mercedes into the main event. So the match starts, and Stephanie Vaquer is destroying Mercedes. The power mismatch is too much for Mercedes to where the announce team says “she’s not just fighting for her title, but she’s fighting for her life.” You drop a line like that, Brock Lesnar better be beating you over the head with steak, and the finish better coincide with that right? Of course not… Mercedes does her best Goku impression where she catches wind mid match, and now this wrestler who’s been dog walking her all match is suddenly get stunned on every strike. And the match doesn’t end with a roll up. It ends with Mercedes locking a submission on Vaquer and causing her to tap immediately. To make things worse, as Toni Storm, Mariah May, and Mina Shirakawa walked off with their hands on each other's asses, leaving the Women’s Champion with no real feud besides waiting to see who wins the Owen Hart Tournament, Britt Baker comes out to confront Mercedes. The biggest star in AEW history said forget the main championship on this show, I’m going to fight Mercedes for the lesser midcard title because I think she’s a tougher opponent than Toni Storm. Remember when being the Women’s Champion or the World Champion meant you were the biggest star on this show. Somebody remind Tony Kahn about that.
IWGP World Heavyweight Title: © Jon Moxley VS Tetsuya Naito
Result: Tetsuya Naito wins by pin to win the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Grade: B-
I thought this was a really strong match out of both men. I don’t think Moxey is ever going to be a guy that gives you a traditional 5-star wrestling match. But he was much more traditional and technical here besides bleeding all over the place and trying to stab his opponent. This should improve the relationship of AEW and NJPW for future events as Naito looked really strong getting a clean victory over a well-known opponent in front of a packed Long Island crowd.
AEW World Championship: © Swerve Strickland VS Will Ospreay
Result: Swerve Strickland wins by pin to retain
Grade: A+
This was a match I was extremely nervous about because I thought they were going to bury Swerve. But they did an excellent job in building Ospreay’s baby face credibility by having him turn away Don Callis. This will probably set up an assault on Ospreay from the Don Callis family, and we might get more alliance between Swerve and Will. As for the action in the ring, it was everything a wrestling fan can ask for. High spots slowed down so that it was easy to follow. The ending was excellent because it made Swerve look like a legitimate killer. Don’t forget he beat potentially the hottest wrestler on the brand. Swerve took a major step as champion in my opinion, going from placeholder to a very legitimate title reign. He’s elevated Ospreay while building up his stock which is a sign of a true star. It doesn’t matter if it’s The Don Callis family or The Elite, people are going to be tuned in to watch what happens next with both men.
Comments
Post a Comment