Forbidden Door

Forbidden Door
Created by	Tony Khan Takami Obari
Promotion(s)	All Elite Wrestling New Japan Pro-Wrestling
First event	2022
Event gimmick	Interpromotional matches involving other promotions

Forbidden Door (禁断の扉, Kindan no Tobira) is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event co-promoted by the American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and the Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). Established in 2022, it is held annually in June and features direct competition between wrestlers from the two promotions. The event takes its name from the same term often used by AEW when referring to working with other professional wrestling companies.

History

See also: Forbidden Door (2022)#Production

Kenny Omega, who was one of several wrestlers that left ROH and NJPW to form All Elite Wrestling

In December 2018, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and several other wrestlers left Ring of Honor (ROH) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), respectively to form their own promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Afterwards, The Young Bucks and Omega shared a bitterned relationship with NJPW's President Harold Meij, and attributed the manner he handled the talent from AEW, as they felt that their loyalty towards NJPW was not mutual, it was rumored that Meij was trying to prevent Omega from working for other promotions in Japan, which Omega denied saying that Meij had nothing to do with his visa issues. On January 5, 2019, The Young Bucks and other AEW officials tried to set up meetings for a potential working relationship between NJPW, ROH and AEW but were shut down by Meij and ROH with the belief was that the group, except Omega, were expendable, and also felt that AEW would not do well due to an unproven track record, and was run by wrestlers, and if AEW wanted a working relationship, Tony Khan needed to come to them, which made Meij and other NJPW officials being upset, leading them to shut down the negotiations about the partnership. This hurted his reputation backstage within the promotion and on September 29, 2020, Meij was fired from his position and replaced by Takami Obari, with the move being described publicly as a "change in NJPW's directorship" due to Bushiroad's executives being unhappy about his management of the promotion with the wrestlers being also unhappy about the way he managed the promotion.

The relationship between the two promotions began improving, with AEW mentioning NJPW in their television programming. Shortly after, at Wrestle Kingdom 14 in Tokyo Dome, Chris Jericho faced Hiroshi Tanahashi, where should Tanahashi defeat Jericho, he would have received a future title opportunity for the AEW World Championship. Jericho, Tanahashi, and NJPW's booker Gedo had the idea to use the possible shot at AEW World Championship to add intrigue to Wrestle Kingdom 14, with Tanahashi referring to the match as the opening of a "Forbidden Door". AEW's owner Tony Khan and Rocky Romero were involved in the deal, with Khan approving and working with Romero for the use of the championship as part of the storyline. Khan made the decision to allow it for the show, but he did not allow it to be used as part of an All Elite Wrestling storyline, mentioned within All Elite Wrestling on television, or social media by the company.

In 2020–21, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the then-IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley from travelling to Japan for NJPW events while keeping his commitments with All Elite Wrestling (AEW), with whom he is also contracted. His AEW contract also prevented him from appearing on NJPW's American events. This resulted in the championship not being defended from February 2020 to February 2021, when an arrangement was made between the two promotions to allow Moxley to appear on NJPW's American television show NJPW Strong in a title defense. In February 2021, the American professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling started a partnership with the Japanese promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), with KENTA being the first NJPW wrestler to appear on AEW's primary weekly television program, Dynamite. Since then, both AEW and NJPW have had their wrestlers appear on each other's shows in the United States. On April 15, 2022, it was reported that a planned co-promoted event held by the two promotions was in the works.

Hiroshi Tanahashi, who coined the term "Forbidden Door", during an interview with Tokyo Sports

The event's name, Forbidden Door, was coined by NJPW wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi and was later used by AEW President and General Manager Tony Khan, at the time when AEW started, that he "prohibited" AEW wrestlers from appearing in other promotions (in televisived appearances) until the end of 2020. At the start of 2021, Khan, along with then-Impact Wrestling Executive Vice Presidents, Don Callis and Scott D'Amore, and NJPW's President and CEO Takami Obari formed a tri-lateral working relationship, with Khan indirectly refering to it as the "Forbiden Door", that "he refrained" AEW wrestlers from "opening it", until he decided he would be the one to "open it". On May 19, Khan referred to himself as the "Forbidden Door" after personally adressing the rumors of WWE's President Nick Khan trying to negotiate a potential working relationship with NJPW with Khan later addressing during a media scrum that NJPW had the idea behind that promo to shut down the rumors about the partnership with WWE. Afterwards, AEW filed a trademark for the terms "Forbidden Door" and "Forbidden Portal".

Andrade El Idolo, one of the wrestlers that were prevented from working in the event

On the April 20, 2022, episode of Dynamite, AEW President Tony Khan introduced NJPW President Takami Obari to make a major announcement regarding their respective companies. They were interrupted by AEW wrestler Adam Cole, who officially announced that a co-promoted event titled Forbidden Door would be held on June 26 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. NJPW had previously partnered with Jersey All Pro Wrestling (JAPW) for the NJPW Invasion Tour 2011 and since 2014 they have been partnered with Ring of Honor (ROH), co-producing shows annually in North America. Pre-sale tickets went on sale on May 5 and sold out in less than 40 minutes, with more than 11,000 tickets sold with only a limited number of tickets set aside to go on sale to the general public on May 6 leading to NJPW and AEW announcing that were going to put additional seats for the show on sale.

Due to a working relationship between NJPW and Mexican promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), Andrade El Idolo was one of the wrestlers that were prevented from working at the first event, due to working for CMLL's rival Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA). The plan was for Andrade to work a program with Will Ospreay, but he was later told that Mexican wrestlers, who work with AAA could not work with NJPW wrestlers, due to their relationship with CMLL; despite AAA allowing him to work for other promotions.

After the first event, the term "forbidden door" gained the connotation of the colaboration between professional wrestling promotions, where sometimes agreements between rival-promotions are often involved. The most recently remarkable use was made by WWE wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura as a reaction to his match against The Great Muta at Pro-Wrestling NOAH's NOAH The New Year event. The event was later awarded the Best Major Wrestling Show from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in the 2022 Wrestling Observer Awards. On March 15, 2023, a second Forbidden Door event between AEW and NJPW was scheduled to be held on June 25, 2023, at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, thus establishing the event as an annual event between the two companies. Tickets went on sale on March 24. This marks AEW's first PPV held outside of the United States and NJPW's first PPV held in Canada. The event also kicked off a month-long tour of Canada for AEW, which includes their weekly television programs and house shows. A documentary was released on June 18, 2023, involving sit-down interviews with William Regal, Sting, Tony Schavonie, Chris Jericho, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shingo Takagi with a retrospective of the event and its lead-up, as well as backstage interviews made at the event, involving FTR, Jay White, Clark Connors and Minoru Suzuki. The documentary is available for free until June 26.

On March 15, 2023, a second Forbidden Door event between AEW and NJPW was scheduled to be held on June 25, 2023, at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, thus establishing Forbidden Door as an annual event between the two companies. Tickets went on sale on March 24. This marked AEW's first PPV held outside of the United States and also kicked off a month-long tour of Canada for AEW, which includes their weekly television programs and house shows. Forbidden Door was also the first Canadian event co-promoted by NJPW to air on traditional PPV outlets. Prior to its acquisition, AEW's sibling promotion, Ring of Honor, co-promoted two Global Wars events with NJPW in 2014 and 2015, both of which were held in Toronto and aired live on internet pay-per-view (iPPV). This event also marked the first non-WWE pay-per-view event to be held in Toronto since November 21, 1999 where Mayhem, produced by World Championship Wrestling, took place at the then-Air Canada Centre.

On April 11, 2024, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) announced that the third Forbidden Door would take place on June 30, 2024, at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. Rocky Romero, who is a vice president for both AEW and NJPW, said that wrestlers from World Wonder Ring Stardom, a women's Japanese company and sister promotion of NJPW, would also take part in the 2024 event, but this has not been officially announced by AEW or NJPW. He also said that there was a possibility for wrestlers from the Mexican promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) to be involved. This was confirmed on the May 29th episode of AEW Dynamite, when the Strong Women's Champion CMLL's Stephanie Vaquer made her AEW confronting Mercedes Mone.

Events

#	Event	Date	City	Venue	Main Event	Ref.
1	Forbidden Door (2022)	June 26, 2022	Chicago, Illinois, United States	United Center	Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the interim AEW World Championship
2	Forbidden Door (2023)	June 25, 2023	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	Scotiabank Arena	Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada
3	Forbidden Door (2024)	June 30, 2024	Elmont, New York, United States	UBS Arena	TBA