Forbidden Door III Discussion
The third edition of the Prohibited Portal Pay-Per produced positively pristine graps - how did the Sickos feel about it?
All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Forbidden Door III set up shop at the UBS Arena on Long Island, NY, this past Sunday, June 30th. This year was slightly different as there were also representatives from World Wonder Ring Stardom (Stardom) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) on the card, and we had some of our writers (including myself) there live to watch the show.
Now, we’re sure you’ve seen a bunch of other outlets do simple reviews and recaps on it, but we wanted to go a step further by diving into specific topics and look at where things go from here for these burgeoning partnerships.
Which performer had a breakout performance? Would you go out of your way to watch more of their work and/or more of their home promotion?
Ryan: It has to be Stephanie Vaquer, right? Her performance in the title-for-title match against Mercedes Moné was star-making. I want to check out more of her CMLL work and hope she’ll make a trip to Japan soon.
Marlowe: I agree with Vaquer here and would be surprised if other people have someone else to list. She gave a fantastic performance and will have many eyes on her. Since Vaquer is such a straightforward answer, let me say a few folks I wish had been in contention:
Hechicero—everyone who watched his recent CMLL match against ZSJ was blown away. It was a rare match in which I felt I was watching something I had not seen before. His battle with MJF was fine, but I was hoping for another ZSJ-level moment.
Jeff Cobb—Cobb turned in two amazing singles performances with Ishii and ZSJ this year and has been a reliably great worker with United Empire. I think he showed his skills in the six-man tag in this match, but I would have loved to see a major singles performance here.
Mike: I know it’s the simple answer that’s already been said to death, but it’s Stephanie Vaquer. Seeing the crowd be entirely at a loss when seeing Vaquer was terrific as someone who was there. I’m very confident that many people (including myself) will be tuning into more CMLL after that insane performance from Stephanie.
Chris: Anyone hoping for a deviation from the pack here will be sorely disappointed, as I will have to back up everyone else’s answer of Vaquer. I was already tangentially familiar with her work, having seen her wrestle in CMLL during the major shows featuring AEW talent this year. However, seeing her wrestle at Forbidden Door was indeed something else. The ability to turn a crowd both relatively unfamiliar with her and ready to cheer the new, famous star in Mercedes Moné into one cheering for the Chilean competitor and insulting Boston’s sports teams to express their disdain for Moné is remarkable. CMLL has something special with Vaquer here, and I am eager to see what the rest of 2024 has in store for her.
Pontiff: As everyone else has said, Stephanie Vaquer is the answer. She’s already had tremendous matches over the past year with Mayu Iwatani and AZM on the US New Japan shows. However, Forbidden Door allowed her to shine on the most significant stage against one of the biggest stars in the history of women’s wrestling in the United States. Not only did she and Mercedes deliver one of the best matches of the night and one of the best women’s matches of 2024, but she also managed to win the hearts of a crowd that was largely unfamiliar with her work beforehand. After this performance, it’s undeniable that Vaquer is one of the top women’s wrestlers in the world. In addition to Vaquer, I’d also like to mention Titán, who had an outstanding performance in the pre-show teaming with fellow LIJ members Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji against the all-star team of Místico & the Lucha Bros. In particular, some exchanges he had with Rey Fenix were mind-blowing. Here’s to hoping we see that as a singles match shortly.
What match deviated most from your expectations?
Marlowe: This one is harder to answer. Fletcher/Serpentico could be it because I expected a longer, more competitive match. Perhaps the Mox/Naito fight just because I expected the quality to be higher.
Mike: It does hurt to say this, but I agree that the IWGP Title match between Moxley and Naito was subpar. This came as a surprise to me because I enjoyed their previous singles matchup. Naito couldn't care less about this match while his body was in a bad state. As for Mox, I think he wanted to wrestle a different type of match that would’ve needed much more effort on Naito’s part. Unfortunately, this was the only match I did not enjoy.
Ryan: I wasn’t expecting a lot from Mox/Naito, to be quite honest. I did enjoy their Windy City Riot match, but late Naito hasn’t impressed me. To that end, I’m unsure if I can call it the match that most deviated from my expectations. Instead, I’ll give it to MJF/Hechicero simply because I was expecting something more akin to OC/ZSJ: someone we don’t normally associate with expert technical wrestling displaying immense skills in that style. Instead, it was a sub-10-minute match to get a nice hometown pop to start the night.
Chris: I’m torn between Mox vs Naito and MJF vs Hechicero for this, as they both fell short of my expectations. I lean towards Mox/Naito because the overall quality of that match was much lower than MJF/Hechicero. I’d hoped the star power of the matchup might overcome Naito’s decline, but the FD opener wasn’t precisely the dazzling display I’d come to expect from the performances MJF tends to provide when he’s got a point to prove.
Pontiff: Mox/Naito, unfortunately, sticks out like a sore thumb on this one. Naito is, alongside Kenny Omega, my favorite wrestler. That made this match especially painful to watch for me. I thought their match at Windy City Riot was excellent, to the point I considered it a borderline top-10 match of the first half of 2024. However, the sequel was a complete dud. Both wrestlers gave a lifeless, uninspired performance that killed the crowd for most of this match. Naito’s physical decline is no secret; however, over the past year, he’s managed to turn back the clock in fantastic matches against Ospreay (an all-time classic) and Okada in the G1, Sanada at Wrestle Kingdom, and the previously mentioned Mox match. Unfortunately, that level of effort wasn’t there in this match, and Naito looked like he was merely phoning it in and going through the motions. This one broke my heart.
The main event for the show featured two AEW stars, Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay. What NJPW wrestler(s) do you want to see stepping up into the vacuum at the top of the card?
Ryan: While I think Ospreay was the right call for this match, it would’ve been good to have had a current NJPW wrestler in that AEW World Title contender slow. There was much buzz around Shota Umino possibly challenging Jon Moxley for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at FD3 going back to when Mox’s reign began, and I think it’s getting closer to the time to pull the trigger on him and Yota Tsuji by giving them singles title reigns in some regard. At the top of the card, though, Shingo Takagi and Zack Sabre Jr seem primed to compete for the World title.
Marlowe: I agree with Ryan that seeing another promotion’s star in the main event would have been nice, but I can’t complain about how good Swerve and Will were. They should have gone with Shota Umino in the Naito spot against Mox. It had a more natural throughline as a story and would have strapped up a younger guy, which seems like the direction NJPW is going right now.
As for who I would have wanted to see here instead, I'd like you to hear me out... David Finlay. The current Bullet Club leader is better than people give him credit for. A significant main event at FD against Swerve could have given him some much-needed promo and story time and allowed him to show off his in-ring skills. He has been the least exciting BC leader, and BC overall has felt bloated and irrelevant for a while, but I believe Finlay has the potential to be as good as a Balor or White and, if not, someday, a Styles or Omega.
Mike: I think I’m being hopeful here, but I think I’d like to see ALL of the Reiwa Three Musketeers at the next Forbidden Door. Many people are pretty high on Tsuji and Umino, hence why those two are the most likely to be near the top of NJPW around this time next year, but it would be cool to see Ren Narita and Yuya Uemura figure themselves out in the next year as well.
Chris: ZSJ is my pick for this; it’s high time NJPW finally got behind him on a main event level. His defending the IWGP title at FD next year feels like the play here. Yota Tsuji and Shota Umino would also be bold declarations of the future becoming present for New Japan. Still, I hesitate to say if they’re 100% ready to bear that responsibility. This upcoming G1 Climax will answer many questions in that regard.
Pontiff: There are four names in particular that I would like to see consistently elevated to the main event scene, as well as two dark horse candidates who could surprise. The core four would be Shingo, ZSJ, Yota Tsuji, and Shota Umino. Shingo and ZSJ are the two best wrestlers in the heavyweight division and are the two guys who should be propping up the main event scene in the short term. Meanwhile, both Yota and Shota, who I feel are close but not quite ready to stand at the top of the company, continue to develop. My two dark horse candidates would be Hiromu Takahashi and Ryohei Oiwa. Hiromu is arguably the best wrestler in the company and arguably the second biggest star behind Naito. If New Japan chooses to move him up to the heavyweight division, I see him becoming the top star of the entire company. Oiwa is currently on an excursion in NOAH and has been fantastic; I think there’s a good chance he will hit the ground running on his return to New Japan, and he could quickly turn out to be the best of the current group of young wrestlers.
This year’s event featured AEW, NJPW, CMLL, and Stardom wrestlers. Who not featured on this year’s show would you like to see next year?
Marlowe: The easy answer is any of the more prominent CMLL stars. We didn’t get Atlantis Jr., Gran Guerrero, or Dorada. My official answer is El Triangulo; I would love to see them against the Bucks. I would have liked to see Gabe Kidd in a more significant solo match, and I think seeing Callum Newman would help his rising star as someone I think will be prominent in the next few years.
Mike: I was surprised not to see AZM on the card, considering how much work she’s done in the US this year, including some work for AEW. When she wrestled Toni Storm earlier this year, it seemed like most fans loved watching her and wanted to see more. Another Stardom wrestler that I think could also elicit that reaction is Starlight Kid. That is someone who surely has to be on the show next year, right? As Marlowe mentioned, seeing more CMLL wrestlers like Atlantis Jr. and Mascara Dorada would be cool.
Ryan: My mind goes more on the train Mike is riding - I was hoping for more Stardom integration this year than we got. It should be noted, of course, that what we got was Mina Shirakawa in a story told over months. With Stardom being better integrated with NJPW, I'm hopeful that future cross-promotional shows between the four promotions will see Stardom involved more.
Chris: The fact that Stardom was featured this year at all was a huge step forward for Forbidden Door, especially as the AEW vs AEW women’s matches on the past two shows felt like a token appearance: a concession made because running a wrestling show in the US with no women’s matches would have the promotion raked over the coals. Sadly, Stardom's show on the same weekend limited who they could send to the US. So, for me, it’s less about any particular wrestler I’d like featured but a more significant Stardom presence if the logistics work out next year, with perhaps a Red or White belt defense on the show where Stardom can claim an undisputed win for their promotion.
Pontiff: This card this year featured a ton of singles matches, and while I enjoyed that next year, I’d like to see them dial back some of the singles matches in favor of a few more “all-star” style tags so that we get to see a greater variety of wrestlers. Echoing what everyone else has said, I’d love to see more Stardom wrestlers, particularly AZM, Saya Kamitani, SLK, and Mayu Iwatani. It would also be fantastic to see the Red Belt or the IWGP Women’s Championship defended on the show. From CMLL, I’d love to see Soberano Jr. and Templario, both of whom possess an incredible “cool” factor and are incredibly dynamic workers. The one glaring omission from New Japan from this year’s card would be El Desperado, who wasn’t featured despite being the Jr. Heavyweight champion. On the topic of Jr. Heavyweight champions, I would love for the newly crowned Douki to find a way onto the show next year. In addition, I desperately need Hiromu to get his big singles match against Darby Allin finally; please, good lord, I need this!
Last topic: what’s your BOLD PREDICTION for Forbidden Door IV?
Ryan: This one might be a little bold, but Zack Sabre Jr. will hold the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship going into FD4.
Marlowe: I like Ryan’s prediction. I think ZSJ will have the belt this year, but if it happens at FD, that is anyone’s guess. I predict we will see a CMLL wrestler in the main event next year. My very bold prediction? We see G1 qualifiers with AEW guys at FD next year. The matches this year at NJPW Soul were along the same timeline, and it would be great to see more AEW representation in the G-1.
Mike: Agreed with everything already said, and I think it wouldn’t be to predict that CMLL will be far-fetched to have a lot more involvement in next year’s Forbidden Door show. I say this partially due to Wrestle Dynasty having just been announced, an inter-promotional show between the companies involved in FD but instead taking place in the Tokyo Dome. Because of the already ongoing FantasticaMania tour, NJPW runs along with CMLL; I assume most CMLL talent won’t be working on Wrestle Dynasty, allowing AEW to make things more unique by incorporating more of the talent from that side.
Ryan: And on that CMLL note, I’ll add that the thawing of the cold war between CMLL and select Mexican talent (namely the Lucha Bros teaming with CMLL’s Místico to take on a NJPW team featuring dual-contract star Titán, but also less rigidity about non-CMLL Mexican wrestlers competing on the same AEW shows as CMLL talent) should pave the way for more CMLL integration for AEW collaborative shows in the future. The main event, Místico? It could be on the way.
Chris: Next year, a New Japan wrestler will finally win an AEW belt at Forbidden Door.
Ryan: Ooo, Chris, that’s spicier than I was thinking! I think Shingo or Ishii could be interesting ones for that. I guess we’ll have to wait until next June to find out!
Pontiff: Hiromu will be defending the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship next year against… Darby Allin! Now, my haters might say this is just my fantasy booking, and… yeah, it pretty much is. Honestly, it was a great call from the haters.
Sicko Cowboi: “Hangman” Adam Page will beat all of your favorites. All of them.