AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door 2022: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to another edition of Wrestling Inc.'s retro reviews, where we take notable wrestling shows from the past and apply our universally celebrated loved/hated format! Back in May, we finally broke the seal on doing this with AEW shows, and now it's time to return to the well, as we take a look at the very first AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door in 2022!

This was a fascinating event for a number of reasons, not least of which was the turnover that had to take place on the card due to injuries. Bryan Danielson was unable to compete on the show, leaving Zack Sabre Jr. to deal with Claudio Castagnoli in his AEW debut; meanwhile, with AEW World Champion CM Punk sidelined, Jon Moxley battled NJPW's Hiroshi Tanahashi to determine the interim champion. We'll tackle both those things here, as we're actually looking at the last six matches of the main card — congratulations to PAC for becoming the first-ever All-Atlantic International American Unified Champion, but this is a show that really gets going when Sting shows up. With that in mind, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2022!

There are very few wrestlers who could have not only returned to the ring in their 60s, but sustained that run over three years and a tag title run, and it somehow turning out to be a worthwhile run of really fun – if a little bit silly – matches and moments. But that is the mythology of Sting, a man forced to retire after wrestling into his 50s after a buckle bomb proved to be the proverbial straw, yet returning to the ring and doing a whole boat load of other bumps like he never had the issues to begin with. Not all of the matches were great, but there can be no doubt in one's mind that out of anyone else in the ring on the night, it was the "Icon" leaving it all out there for the time he was allotted. 

Such could be said and a little more for his tag team bout at Forbidden Door, teaming with his little homunculus alongside Shingo Takagi against the Young Bucks and El Phantasmo. So I will give it my best go to offer the little more on that front. 

With the added benefit of hindsight, this match felt like a prelude to their Revolution bout that served as Sting's retirement, and that worked to enhance the story of the match. Truthfully, it's not like there was much of a story in the first place, such things were normally circumvented by Sting doing Sting things whenever Darby Allin was being slaughtered by heels. Sting was presented as a timeless vigilante, and the Bucks are perhaps one of the foremost names people want to see getting beaten up. The Bucks are definitely immense workers, and that was on display throughout the bout. 

Sure, if you're going into this wanting a technical clinic that followed the logic and psychology of an actual sporting contest, you were never going to get that from either team or Sting specifically at this age. But if you want to, as Michael Keaton's Batman put it, "Get nuts," then any of Sting's AEW matches, and especially this one, are more than worth the shout.

Written by Max Everett

One of the least exciting matches on the Forbidden Door 2022 card was sadly the only one featuring women, the AEW Women's World Championship match where Thunder Rosa defended her gold against Toni Storm, well before she was "Timeless." Even though Storm wasn't her more-exciting character of today, she still had a ton of momentum behind her. At the time of the title match, she was 9-1 in the company, having just signed in March of that year.

The match didn't exactly fit the bill for Forbidden Door, since it was a straight-up AEW match on a show that actually did feature a ton of NJPW talent. It was also the shortest match on the show, at just short of 11 minutes, with the match before it getting just a bit more time. It was also put in between that short six-man tag featuring Sting and the excellent Orange Cassidy and Will Ospreay bout, making it unfortunately even less memorable.

Storm and Rosa don't have a bad match by any means, but it's a rather slow one compared to all the others on the night. The crowd is still into it, especially when Storm takes control. The match geared up slightly toward the end when Rosa hit a Northern Lights suplex to Storm on the floor, but even that wasn't that crazy. Storm's rally with a DDT to the floor, followed by a hip attack and another DDT back in the ring looked promising, but she's unable to hit a single Storm Zero throughout the entire match.

The most exciting point of the match was when Storm took a Death Valley Driver, followed by a Fire Thunder Drive, but kicked out. The excitement didn't last for long, however, because Rosa simply got her up for Final Reckoning, not giving Storm time for any kind of offense to look like she could have battled back, ending the match.

While it obviously couldn't have been predicted that Rosa would get hurt in November and end up having to relinquish the championship, it would have made a ton of sense to put the belt on Storm here. If it wasn't a Forbidden Door match involving a Stardom talent, things could have been easily spiced up with a title change. The crowd was behind Storm throughout this and she was definitely ready. Sadly, that wasn't the case and Rosa vs. Storm is a pretty forgettable match on an otherwise really entertaining show. It's unfortunate between all the "Forbidden Door" matches, dream matches, in some cases, the women of AEW weren't given a better showing. Thankfully, we know it gets better throughout the years, especially for Storm.

Written by Daisy Ruth

When you think back to Forbidden Door 2022, one of the things you immediately remember is how cursed the show was. CM Punk's broken foot kept him from wrestling Hiroshi Tanahashi in the main event, Kenny Omega was still two months away from returning to the ring after seemingly having eight million different injuries, and Bryan Danielson not being medically cleared meant he joined the likes of Kyle O'Reilly, Jungle Boy, Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi, and Tomohiro Ishii on the list of wrestlers who weren't able to make the trip to Chicago. But one man was able to make the trip, and in turn kicked open the Forbidden Door permanently in a way that would lead to him joining AEW from NJPW less than 18 months later.

By mid-2022, Will Ospreay was already one of the most talked about wrestlers on the planet, and his AEW debut in the build-up to this show was met with something of a mixed reception. Ospreay was already polarizing at the time, with some AEW fans thinking that he might be the one guy in all of New Japan that was genuinely overhyped. Then he wrestled Dax Harwood on the Road Rager edition of "AEW Dynamite," and all of those doubts of him being overhyped were eradicated almost immediately. Talks of a potential dream match with Andrade El Idolo made the rounds, but that match didn't happen due to AEW having a working relationship with AAA at the time, the sworn enemy of CMLL who were in working agreement with New Japan at the time, but if anything, the man Ospreay ended up facing did him more favors than anyone else.

Orange Cassidy was coming off of an injury at the time, but everyone knew that "Freshly Squeezed" could hang with virtually anyone in AEW. However, Ospreay had proven to NJPW fans, and now AEW fans that he might actually be on another level, therefore Cassidy needed to come to Forbidden Door with more than just his A game, and that's exactly what he did. For my money, this is the match of the night on a show that was filled with match of the night contenders. Ospreay portraying an arrogant heel probably can't happen now given how beloved he is, and the fact that his high-octane style wows people so much that he will get cheered for whatever he does, but there's a real mean streak to his work as "The Billy Goat" that is really fun, and it makes the Hidden Blade look even more impactful.

As for Cassidy, he puts in another great babyface performance that makes you wonder why he has never gotten a full-time main event push, but makes you understand why he held the AEW International Championship for so long. Cap it all off with the surprise appearance of Katsuyori Shibata, and you have yourself one of the best all-around matches of 2022, and a match in AEW and NJPW's history that doesn't get talked about nearly enough.

Written by Sam Palmer

In the build-up to the inaugural Forbidden Door event came immeasurable disappointment in the injury-forced postponement of the dream match between Bryan Danielson and Zack Sabre Jr., but as promised a replacement would be put forward, and he would need to be quite the name to turn that bitter taste sweet. 

The debut of Claudio Castagnoli did that and a little bit more, with what very easily could have been a squash and a surprise for the segment being given the time to actually breathe for itself, putting forward an entirely alternative dream match that opened up the next chapter for the man formerly known as Cesaro. It should go without saying at this point, but Castagnoli is one of the most reliable high-quality wrestlers with a genuine sense of aura and charisma in the sport; Sabre Jr. is perhaps one of the best grapplers in professional wrestling today (and also three years ago). So they were bound to have a good match, in fact they were bound to and wound up having a great match comprised of their respective styles clashing in a genuinely organic way. 

It was wrestling in its rawest form, no melodrama, just a contest of participants. I am cognizant of those who do not like the 'Pure' style, but it's a good thing there's more than one flavor being sold. This flavor is my flavor, it was three years ago, and it was on the re-watch, and that's the thing. For someone like me, this is a match that can be watched at any time, something to stand on its own as a bout in an athlete's career rather than a story with months of weekly lore or, per the wrestling custom, lackluster cut and paste segments. 

More importantly, on an AEW x NJPW show this was one of the rare matches that actually leaned into the latter promotion's signature style more than anything, and if one thing can be said of AEW, it's that they will have great matches that follow the exact same beats and that can be progressively jarring, so whenever something feels different there is this inherent gravitation towards it. 

Lastly, on a show that featured the inaugural All-Atlantic Championship inauguration, a title since renamed to the International title, the American title, the International title again, and then unified with the Continental title to make the Unified Championship, in a match that pitted now-WWE stars Miro and Malakai Black (Rusev and Aleister Black, respectively) against Clark Connors and PAC, Castagnoli and Sabre Jr.'s presence has continued to be felt in AEW up until now. Like it not, Castagnoli is featured every week as part of the company's top faction, he has held AEW Trios and ROH gold, and can be consistently relied on to deliver a great match. That makes it a good business decision as well. There is quite literally nothing negative that could be said about this moment in time, although I will leave that to someone else to try.

Written by Max Everett

I don't really see the point in any other takeaways — from the IWGP world title match at Forbidden Door 2022, or to be honest, from Forbidden Door 2022 in general. Aside from being the first one, it's honestly not the most memorable or meaningful show; watching it back three years later, it mostly just seems quaint. Hey, remember when the International title debuted but it was called the All-Atlantic title? Remember Toni Storm before she found the gimmick that changed the course of her career? Remember Le Sex Gods? Aside from the main event's relatively marginal role in the chain of events that would become Brawl Out, almost nothing about this show had anything resembling long-term impact, but Adam Cole's concussion in the semi-main sure as s*** did.

Or at the very least, I think it's safe to assume that Cole suffering what was reported to be a "serious" concussion at Forbidden Door 2022 ("serious" in quotes because any CTE specialist will tell you there's no such thing as a concussion that isn't serious) very likely contributed to his current inactive status, since Cole appears to once again be dealing with concussion issues in the wake of his vacating the TNT title at All In this year. I actually find it almost impossible to believe the two things are not related — but even if they're not, you can't watch this match without thinking about where Cole's career goes from here.

Cole rode into AEW on a storm of momentum, his surprise debut coinciding with that of Bryan Danielson at All Out 2021. His first AEW PPV match saw him team up with company EVPs The Young Bucks at Full Gear 2021; his second one was a world title match against Adam Page at Revolution 2022. Those were both losses, but he won the inaugural Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament at Double or Nothing 2022 and seemed poised to be a major player in AEW heading into his IWGP world title match at Forbidden Door. And then ... calamitous setback after calamitous setback. He battled back from the concussion in 2023 and almost immediately became involved with MJF, their story of friendship and ever-delayed betrayal becoming the hottest thing in wrestling that summer, leading to the two of them main-eventing All In 2023, objectively one of the biggest wrestling shows in history — only to have it taken away by a freakishly severe ankle injury that kept him out of action until WrestleDream 2024. Once again, Cole returned, winning the TNT title, but even that brief reign was derailed by these latest medical concerns.

Tony Khan clearly saw Adam Cole as a big screaming deal in AEW; everything from his debut to his booking tells you that. He was, very obviously, a world champion in waiting. I can't help but watch Forbidden Door 2022 and come away thinking most about how differently all of this was supposed to go.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

One of the things that fans of New Japan Pro Wrestling have always had a problem with when it comes to the company's working relationship with AEW is how wonky the relationship feels at times. On the main card of this show in particular, the only NJPW representatives that came away with a victory were Minoru Suzuki, Shingo Takagi, Will Ospreay and Jay White. In the years since this show, the Forbidden Door concept as a whole has lost some of its luster as the majority stars of NJPW who can still go at a high level have all been signed by AEW, and it just feels like at times it's NJPW raising AEW's hand in victory rather than them raising each other's hands as a sign of togetherness. 

Take the very end of this show for example. Jon Moxley and Hiroshi Tanahashi finally had the match that they had been teasing for many years, with Moxley walking away with the victory, and the Interim AEW World Championship in the process (the title was interim because CM Punk had gotten injured). At the end of a show that was the perfect example of "good vibes all around despite the show being so cursed it may as well have taken place in a haunted house," Moxley and Tanahashi should have raised each other's hands in solidarity, show the wrestling world that AEW and NJPW as a duo were a force to be reckoned with. Instead, we effectively got a commercial for "AEW Dynamite."

After this match was over, Moxley, flanked by the men he would team up with in Blood and Guts the following Wednesday, those being Eddie Kingston, Santana, Ortiz, Wheeler Yuta, and the newest member of the Blackpool Combat Club, Claudio Castagnoli, ended up in a big brawl with the Jericho Appreciation Society. We had already seen the JAS and the BCC duke it out at the start of the show for the man advantage in Blood and Guts, and if some sort of fight had broken out after that match, it would have been fine as it was a self-contained segment anyway. Obviously, Claudio was a surprise so he couldn't be there, and Moxley was in the main event so he shouldn't have been there in theory, but instead, we quickly shuffled "The Ace" out of the ring so we could have Jake Hager and 2.0 getting their butts kicked for 15th week in a row.

What's more, the very real feud between Claudio and Eddie that is showcased at the end of the show kind of falls flat to anyone who didn't routinely watch their feud in CHIKARA, leaving you saying "Wait, wasn't NJPW a part of this show? Why do these two guys hate each other? What is happening right now?" It's all well and good trying to get people excited for one of your biggest TV episodes of the year, but on this show, it felt like it was done at the expense of NJPW.

Written by Sam Palmer