AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II: An event years in the making

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II has the potential to live up to the expectations built from the first show.

This year All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling kick down the Forbidden Door once again on June 25 for the second time ever. Last year when the inaugural edition of Forbidden Door was announced fantasy bookers united to create all their dream matchups between the two promotions.

Most of the ideas were quickly shot down due to injuries to CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Kenny Omega. With injuries to top stars, both promotions were forced to make something out of nothing. The pay-per-view in 2022 headlined by Jon Moxley vs Hiroshi Tanahashi seemed like just a match to make a big main event happen, even when the dream match was Punk vs Tanahashi. This year the script reverses, nearly every big name of both promotions is healthy leaving endless possibilities for the show.

Will Ospreay vs Kenny Omega

The first confirmed matchup was revealed at NJPW Dominion when Will Ospreay beat Lance Archer to become the number one contender for Kenny Omega’s IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. The last time these two stars met was at Wrestle Kingdom 17 and that match is still regarded as a 2023 match of the year contender. At Forbidden Door 2022, Will Ospreay’s match with Orange Cassidy was largely regarded as a show stealer, and now with the chemistry of Omega and Ospreay already in place, he is set to tear the house down once again.

Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada

The second match challenge was laid out by yet another talent who was injured for last year’s event when Bryan Danielson appeared in a video promo challenging former IWGP heavyweight champion Kazuchika Okada to a match. 12 months ago, Okada was thrown into a four-way between himself, ‘Hangman’ Adam Page, Jay White, and Adam Cole. This match was put together to get big names on the card but had no real story behind it leaving much to still be desired. Now a year later, Okada gets to have one of the biggest matches of his career against arguably the best technical wrestler in the world, with at least three weeks of build-up to the match.

Even with only two matches announced so far the motivation for both promotions is clear, ‘let’s make up for the lack of dream matches a year ago’. The event set for around three weeks from now is already set up to be what Tony Khan and Takami Ohbari pictured from the very formation of their partnership. The only thing I think they can improve on from last year is bringing in more women’s matches to the card and even possibly bringing in talent from Stardom.

When talent is healthy AEW and NJPW have a chance to make magic pro wrestling has never seen before and this year they have a great shot at having the most dream matches in one night in pro wrestling history.