With tonight's AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, two tournament winners were crowned, several titles were successfully defended, and what was considered a dream rematch by many fans was tucked away in the second spot on the main card.If you just finished watching Forbidden Door and want to dive into our team's reactions, you've come to the right place. Here you'll find us talking about those tournament finales, as well as the cartoonish steel cage match, one show-stealing title defense, and another that felt unnecessary for this particular event.To find a full breakdown of tonight's show, take a look at our AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2026 results page. Otherwise, get ready to dig into our opinions and share some of your own in the comments.
There is one problem that I always have with AEW pay-per-views at this point well, technically it's two problems. The problem I have after watching an AEW pay-per-view that is built on putting the best of the best matches on display and then being asked "What didn't you like about the show?" is that it's so hard to find something to hate on when virtually everything was good-to-fantastic. I feel a bit sly criticizing a match or a segment that has no business being dunked on for the sake of doing my job.However! There is one problem with this show, and you know what it is! The length!When I seen that the Buy-In only had two matches advertised (which later became three matches), I thought that was a great move. Let the two matches booked have time to breathe and give people a chance to get excited for the rest of the show. When nine matches were booked, I thought that was even better because there would be a nice flow to the event. But then I looked at the time, and full transparency, I'm writing this from the other side of the pond where it is literally a bright Monday morning, but I looked at the time and realized that the show had been on for nearly four hours (not including the Buy-In) and hadn't even finished the Steel Cage Match yet.Now usually, I'm actually one of the people who is fine with the length of an AEW show. You pay for an AEW pay-per-view, you're going to get as much as humanly possible crammed into a four/five hour window and the vast majority of it is going to be very good. It's a good trade, but even without the pre-show, Forbidden Door was nearly five hours, which is an issue despite its quality.Take Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Kenny Omega for example. One of the best matches on the show for my money that went on second and ran for over 25 minutes. By the time you get to the end of the main event, you almost forget how good ZSJ/Omega actually was which isn't really a good thing. You want people to remember the entire experience, not just the most recent thing they saw because all that you've shown your audience has flown in one eyeball and out the other. The first one or two matches on the show were excellent, but you feel like they happened eight years ago by the time you get to the main event and that can be detrimental.A short match here and there can go a long way, they can even be as memorable as a 60-minute draw when done right. So Tony Khan, for the 97th time, please know that not every pay-per-view match you book needs to be at least 20 minutes and not every show needs to feel like a marathon.Written by Sam Palmer
When Jon Moxley vs. Bandido for the AEW Continental Championship was booked for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2026, a few things crossed my mind. The first was that this a cross-branded show; what are we even doing with ourselves? The second was Bandido has just come back to the company after having visa issues, why not build to this sort of dream match with Moxley until AEW Redemption 2026, or even a big main event on "AEW Dynamite" where it would get the love, care, and respect that it deserves. The third was that this was going to be a fantastic match. Have a wild guess as to what the thought was that stayed in my mind throughout this match.Styles make fights, and this was a great contrast of styles. Bandido the luchador who had the strength and power to go with all of the high-flying offense, and Moxley who had all of the violence and chaos to go with all his own strength and power. What followed was, for my money, the sleeper choice for match of the night at Forbidden Door.The choice to have Bandido wear all white was fantastic. You could get the sense that he was going to get some color at some point with the attire he was wearing, but he nailed the blade job, and Moxley nailed the ripping of the mask to the point where Bandido looked like a warrior by the end of things. Moxley was also on top form, and probably had his best AEW Continental Championship defense so far. The little taunts at the start to get the crowd to hate him were just small touches, but they were evident enough to show that Moxley was going to do whatever he could to put Bandido over.He took all of Bandido's big moves as well. The one-armed Press Slam on a guy like Moxley looked insane but really worked. Bandido giving him a Powerbomb that looked nasty as anything, but the set up of Bandido trying to stop the corner punches by grabbing Mox, only for Mox to keep punching anyway was great. The Fallaway Slam from the top was as impressive as ever, and even the way he got out of the 21-Plex. The performance of someone who despite not having the right hardware to prove it, he is still worthy of being "The Ace" of AEW, which is ironic considering who he came face-to-face with later in the night.It was violent, it was impressive, and it was wildly entertaining. If you want to watch any match from this show to get a feel of the quality on display, Moxley and Bandido have you covered.Written bySam Palmer
I have to admit, I didn't expect the AEW World Tag Team Championship match pitting Adam Copeland and Christian Cage against The Dogs' Clark Connors and David Finlay to be the match where "Switchblade" Jay White finally returned after a year out of action. I wasn't a huge fan of this match being on the Forbidden Door card before that happened, and honestly, as much as I love and missed White, I still think the show could have done without this match.I don't know just how you have White make his grand return if it wasn't here to confront his former NJPW rival Finlay, however, but overall, I still didn't love this match on the card, as it's only purpose was to bring White and the Bang Bang Gang back into the fold. There were so many longer, great matches on the card tonight, before White's return, the tag team championship match really didn't fit in.The Dogs haven't been the strongest in AEW since their debut, though to be fair, they have been stacking up a few wins before challenging Cope and Cage. They've also looked pretty strong in various brawls with the champions. They actually did look really strong to start out this match which was kind of disappointing, in a way, since it was obvious they weren't going to win the tag titles, especially before All In: London.The argument that AEW doesn't need Forbidden Door gets stronger every year, and while I was initially in that camp, after a few of the matches tonight, like ZSJ vs. Kenny Omega and Starlight Kid vs. Thekla, especially, I don't know if that's the case. However, I think AEW could do away with matches like tonight's AEW World Tag Team Championship defense, which could have been moved to main event an episode of "Dynamite," which may quell some of the criticism. Again, White's return may not have felt as big or special there, but I think it still could have worked, if done right.The in-ring action wasn't bad at all, though I am pretty tired of Copeland, and that's a me thing, but with the predictability of the outcome, combined with not fitting the Forbidden Door concept, I just didn't love it. It was surrounded by so many other great matches, all pretty lengthy, even for an AEW pay-per-view, that I'm just not sure it belonged tonight.Written by Daisy Ruth
Maya World had already proven to be the surprise of the Women's Owen Hart Cup by getting to the finals at Forbidden Door, after entering as a replacement for the injured Sareee. She took all of that underdog spirit into her match with Mercedes Mone, undoubtedly the biggest match of her career, and almost stole it all away from beneath "The CEO" when all was said and done.No one really expected World to win this match, and that was part of the challenge for her: getting the audience to believe in the improbable. The match started out much in that vein, Mone dominating over her opponent and really forcing World to fight back from beneath.Slowly but surely as the match went on, a single reversal was beginning to turn into an extended flurry until finally, World was actually standing toe-to-toe with the veteran in the ring. She was never really winning the match, but she was always keeping herself in it. And while she was in it, there was the chance she could steal three seconds.Mone, and at the very least this writer, thought she had the match won at last when she landed the Mone Maker. But World kicked out and continued to muck on, eventually locking in Mone's own Statement Maker in the middle of the ring. This was where things truly started to feel like she could actually do it.Mone appeared to have nowhere to go, and even as she got closer to the ropes, World put her foot out and pushed back. If she got that roll-over back into the ring, she had the win under wraps. Mone rolled with her, using the briefest of slips to cinch in the Statement Maker herself. Here is where it started to look like as though the dream was fading. And even still World looked to have fought out of it.Mone hit a cut-throat backstabber into her next Statement Maker, locking the hold in deep and arching her opponent's back. Then and only then did World tap out and mark the end of the match. Just shy of 25 minutes after the starting bell, Mone had won the Owen Hart Cup and will go to Wembley to challenge the AEW Women's World Champion.World, though, made a star of herself in this match, and she'll certainly be someone to watch in the future.Written by Max Everett
Let me preface this with the fact that I enjoyed the match and particularly loved the spot with Lio Rush, but the steel cage match had no business being on this card. Yes, Konosuke Takeshita is the NJPW TV Champion and Andrade just lost the IWGP Global Championship. They took out Ishii so he couldn't compete. I know visas are an issue (which kept Hechicero and maybe Volador, Jr. and Keminito away), but there weren't any other CMLL or NJPW talent available for this match? The stakes were entirely based around AEW. If Team Briscoe won, Briscoe got a title shot. That's it; that's the stipulation. This match could've been on Beach Break or the "Dynamite" where they did the 10-man match after revealing their teams.This is the fifth Forbidden Door, which is co-branded with NJPW. The show is promoted with their partners CMLL and STARDOM. The last couple of Forbidden Door shows have been AEW heavy. This year's show featured an unnecessary triple main event and they were all AEW matches. The Owen Cup finals didn't need to be on this card, although I suspect the women's final may have featured Sareee had she been cleared by AEW's doctors. Even though it wasn't part of the triple main event matches, Cope + Christian vs. The Dogs was an AEW match (even though The Dogs defected from NJPW). Kenny Omega vs. ZSJ would main event any other card. Thekla vs. Starlight Kid could've been the penultimate match.With the addition of Redemption, AEW now has 10 pay-per-views. They can afford to have one that is geared to what Forbidden Door was supposed to be: a celebration of all of the promotions. Give me dream matches like Omega/ZSJ, Thekla/Starlight Kid, and El Sky Team vs. Young Bucks vs. Unbound Co. This is what Forbidden Door should be. I want an entire card of that. Play up rivalries like Thekla vs. STARDOM and Yota Tsuji vs. AEW. Treat the partnerships more equally and present them all equally.Written by Samantha Schipman
It hardly seemed likely heading into the Men's Owen Hart Cup final that Swerve Strickland vs. Will Ospreay would turn out a bad match, but that left the onus on them to decide how many rungs above good it was going to be.What ensued was a match of layers and the gradual peeling back of said layers. Starting off there was a competitiveness one would have expected from partners, and a playfulness from Strickland that communicated he was a big brother about to school his younger.Ospreay eventually broke through that playfulness with a little more edge, going straight at Strickland and begging, through means of elbows and forearms, him to treat the match with the reverence it deserved. Once the shots started to sting, Strickland dialed up the tempo and went back at Ospreay, the bout devolving into a much more violent affair befitting the "Most Dangerous" and the "Aerial Assassin" under tutelage of the Death Riders.Soon enough, Ospreay was bleeding buckets after taking a gnarly bump on his neck onto the apron and being driven face-first into the turnbuckle rods. But then later on Strickland was busted wide open and both men were bleeding profusely all over the place. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me, it just added to the big fight feel and the stakes at play.It was an Ospreay match, which, speaking of not being everyone's cup of tea, meant an indulgent and long affair with a grand closing stretch chock-full of near-falls and moves. Again, personally it just added to the bout. Jon Moxley and the Death Riders came out ringside to support Ospreay, while crucially not getting involved.There was a solid moment where Ospreay, having been hit with House Call, looked at Moxley and rose to his feet. From there he struck Strickland with a Hidden Blade, then a Buckshot Hidden Blade. And then when that wasn't enough to win the match he tripled up a Paradigm Shift, a Death Riders, and finally a Tiger Driver for the winning three count.It took the entirety of his and a little of Moxley's arsenal to beat Strickland, having absorbed everything that he had to offer. But when all was said and done, it was him with the win and it is now him who will challenge the World Champion at All In.Those who don't enjoy Ospreay's work likely won't enjoy this match. But for someone who does truly rate him highly, this was an excellent piece of work. This was just another example of the immense talent of Swerve Strickland as well, arguably the greatest wrestler in the world.Written by Max Everett
