On June 26, AEW and NJPW combined to hold their joint Forbidden Door show, which highlighted the top talent from both companies.
AEW and NJPW have been linked together since the inception of AEW as The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) and Kenny Omega were three of the top stars in NJPW when they left for AEW. Though the Bucks and Omega wouldn't return to NJPW, Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley would regularly work major NJPW shows in Japan before the pandemic.
During the pandemic, the relationship was strengthened as NJPW talent, beginning with KENTA, began appearing on AEW television.
Rocky Romero has often been credited for bringing everyone together across multiple promotions in wrestling and it was his text to Tony Khan that got the ball rolling on Forbidden Door.
"I think, now nobody get mad at me (laughs) if my memory doesn’t serve me well. I think that I sent a text to Tony {Khan} and said, I think it would be cool if somehow we can figure out how to do some kind of joint event’ and then it just kinda started from there. Then he immediately had ideas about what we could do card wise, honestly starting with (Kazuchika) Okada, Jay (White), Hangman (Page), I am not sure if (Adam) Cole was in the picture at that time, or if he came later. But that was already kind of an idea, so it’s funny that it worked out that way, all the way to Forbidden Door. This conversation was like 10 months ago or so I would say. Kinda a ways away. I think that’s kinda how it started and then it just snowballed… So I wanna say 10 months ago, it started with that text," Romero told Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture.
Romero was not only active as an on-screen talent for AEW, NJPW, and other promotions in the ten months between the text and the show, he communicated the ideas between both sides.
"I just went back and forth between AEW and New Japan and tried to be sensible and try to be the one to communicate what the ideas were but also sentiment and overall what the show needed. Whether it be, ‘we need more of this or we need more of this and let’s not forget about American fans or Japanese fans we need to cater to them this way.’ Kinda really trying to break that down, so that both sides could understand two completely different ways of doing business. The AEW model is obviously a traditional American TV model whereas New Japan is more of a Japanese tour based model so it’s very different, the way they booked shows and do things. So I had to explain that on both sides," he said.
While Kenny Omega wasn't able to take part in the Forbidden Door show, he was integral behind the scenes in helping mend the relationship between AEW and NJPW.
"Since the New Japan/AEW relationship was kinda on ice, when the Elite guys had exited New Japan and there was kind of a worry of how they were gonna go forward, and our president at the time didn’t really see the potential in maybe working with AEW. We already had partners in ROH, CMLL, so maybe they were thinking, 'let’s see how this AEW thing works out before jumping into it, so we don’t offend our partners.' Obviously those guys had left ROH too, so it was a very messy and complicated situation. Now jumping forward to I would say, a year and a half ago when Kenny (Omega) called me and had pitched the idea of kind of opening the doors a little bit. Obviously Moxley and Jericho were still working with New Japan. But Kenny and the Bucks were a pivotal, important part of New Japan prior to AEW, and they’re EVPs, so they hold a lot of power. Not wanting to forget about them completely, we had to open the relationship and Kenny kind of opened that and said 'hey I have this idea of KENTA coming into AEW and working with Moxley since they already had a storyline' and that’s kinda where everything started. Going forward I’ve always kinda been in between AEW and New Japan since that day and I just continued on," explained Romero.
Romero competed at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, teaming with Trent Beretta in a three-way tag team bout against FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) and United Empire (Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan) for the ROH and IWGP Tag Team Championships.
If you missed anything from AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.