Is The Forbidden Door Concept Outdated?

​Sitting here away on holiday thinking about wrestling. I know doesn’t seem like I do much else. But we are in full Forbidden Door season for AEW which I was fortunate to be at last year in the O2 and well is the idea of ‘Forbidden Door’ redundant now? 

If you look at what this show meant to being with it was the first union of AEW and NJPW following years of tension. After AEW was founded the president of NJPW at the time Harold Meji felt slighted by the departure of The Elite as well as other key talents to the new promotion in America opting for closer bigger paydays. New Japan saw The Best Friends gone just as they were looking to push Trent as a singles talent and mainstay Lance Archer to name a few. 

I wasn’t really until the build up to Wrestle Kingdom 14 and Chris Jericho vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi that Tanahashi said should he win and get a shot at the AEW title he would walk through ‘The Forbidden Door’ to win the title. While Tanahashi didn’t win that day I think it went same way to mending fences and the eventual dismissal of Harold Meji helped to in the end open the Forbidden Door. While many now use ‘Forbidden Door’ as the name for cross promotion dream matches it needs to be remembered this was a term used because of the tensions between AEW and NJPW. 

But now? Those tensions do not exist and the companies combined with CMLL & NJPW’s sister promotion STARDOM work in somewhat harmony. Talents regularly swap about shows. We’ve seen CMLL’s Mistico come win titles in both AEW (the world trios) and NJPW (the IWGP Jr Tag Titles), AEW’s Claudi Castignoli & MJF win CMLL titles, Will Ospreay seemingly has a story across AEW & NJPW with The Death Riders and United Empire with where his loyalties are and recently STARDOM’s Hazuki appear in AEW. It does really showcase the harmony to have talents appear all over the world in different companies. Sure it isn’t full proof and I’d love to see talents take advantage of this more. Top Flight in the Super Jr Tag league or give someone like Maya World some time in STARDOM would do wonders but that’s more wishful thinking over anything more factual. Wrestling is better though Co-Operation over monopolisation and it’s why I got the see AEW’s Eddie Kingston live for RevPro in June and providing he’s healthy and avoids injuries in the next few weeks I’ll see Bandido in July. 

But I mean there is the problem with ‘Forbidden Door’ it’s not forbidden anymore. It’s gone from padlocked with security either side to being replaced with a revolving door for more use and open 24 hours. Even more of the fact the large majority of matches on both the 2024 and 2025 shows are just AEW matches not the inter promotional matches because they can happen whenever. 

Tickets aren’t also going at a rapid rate. Sure they’ve outselling Slammiversary (I think it’s about for every 1 ticket TNA have sold AEW have sold 6) but it’s not heavy demand we’ve seen from other shows. Maybe the dream matches in the concept aren’t there, maybe because it happens at any time on tv the one time to see inter-promotional stuff doesn’t exist anymore. 

So what would I do? Well I think I’d rename the show. There is no Forbidden Door and the more time you get away from the initial tensions the less it makes sense. I think it’d be better replaced by a new name and idea (they won’t do less PPV’s as they need to justify the MyAEW PPV Tier pricing) and I’d do a Grand Slam: Japan much like Australia and Mexico. That way you get AEW in Japan can run some dream matches but also helps the international presence. At the same time you’d look to help boost the New Japan shows where you can (which AEW kinda already does). 

In conclusion, Forbidden Door was a product of its time it showed that the initial issues between AEW & NJPW were done but now it is a reminder of that more than anything. The name makes less sense as years go on and has too much of a backlog to argue. I’m sure someone could make a great book about it (not me that’s a lot). At the end of the day the real Forbidden Door was the friends we made along the way.