AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door 2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s annual coverage of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, the show that's meant to also have STARDOM and CMLL participation but hey, let's be honest, they could barely manage NJPW participation this year! The show featured — among other things — a four-way TBS Championship match, Nigel McGuinness wrestling Zack Sabre Jr. in London, new AEW tag team champions, the return of Wardlow, a successful title defense for "Hangman" Adam Page, and an absolutely wild Light Out Steel Cage match!

As it happens, those are the matches from the show we'll be covering in this column, because those are the ones that made us feel the strongest feelings! If you're really feeling the need to read more about Cope and Christian winning the opener, Kyle Fletcher's TNT title defense, Jamie Hayter coming back, or Toni Storm tapping out Athena, you can definitely do that over on our results page. If you want to know what we thought of the show, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025!

This is what Forbidden Door is about, is it not?

Sunday, Mercedes Mone defended her AEW TBS Championship in a multi-woman match for the first time, taking on AEW's Alex Windsor, CMLL's Persephone, and STARDOM's Bozilla in a chaotic four-way contest. While the match itself had a predictable ending — of course, the practically-undefeatable Mone took the victory following a roll-up pin — it is not about the destination, but the journey. To call Forbidden Door's TBS four-way match a "journey" is an understatement, though: it was a tour of women's wrestling, with all four women bringing their unique in-ring abilities to make London's O2 Arena vibrant with life.

Despite being the champion, Mone was the underdog in Sunday's match-up. She has never been the strongest, and she was put in the ring with Windsor, one of AEW's stronger women, Persephone, who some might compare to WWE's Triple H, and Bozilla, who is six feet tall. She was always going to be at a disadvantage, and while Mone did ultimately overcome the overwhelming competition with her signature counters, I quite enjoyed seeing Mone as an underdog. It made sense from a combat perspective, but more importantly, it provided space for all three challengers to showcase their in-ring abilities.

Windsor gets more flack than she should, but she was the glue that held this match together. Windsor marks the halfway point between Mone's agile technician work and Bozilla's strength-based offense. She can flatten Bozilla with diving, top-rope Clotheslines, but she can also cinch in a mean Sharpshooter. Persephone also inhabits this halfway point between full in-ring technician and powerhouse, but with a bit more of a strongwoman lean. Her Crucifix Powerbomb on Bozilla was called the "move of the match" by commentary, and I'm inclined to agree. Persephone is a full package: she has strength, she has the agility associated with lucha libre, and she has star power. Her future is undoubtedly bright.

Bozilla is only 21 (no, I don't feel like a fossil right now), but you wouldn't have guessed from her performance. She moved in that ring with the confidence of an older, wiser competitor — not someone only three years in to her career. She was the great equalizer, a strong arm to curb any of the competition's offense, but she didn't fall to the pitfalls of strongwoman stereotypes. She was thoroughly entertaining throughout the entire match, and that Moonsault had me gasping. If she's performing like this so early on in her career, I'm excited to see what the next few years will hold.

Was this the cleanest match? No, there were moments were the women stumbled. Some spots didn't land as intended. Fake lashes were lost. However, there's a contouring element: by having those mistakes, the match's highlights were made even more enjoyable — by seeing the bad, we could appreciate the good. Mistakes included, Sunday's contest was a spectacle to be watched back, thanks to every competitor's unique style and inimitable charm. This is what Forbidden Door is about.

Written by Angeline Phu

Nigel McGuinness had arguably his best match since returning to the ring last year as he challenged Zack Sabre Jr. – hands down the best technical wrestler right now – for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. Now, no one really went into this match believing that the semi-retired veteran that spends his weeks on commentary was going to dethrone the relatively new champion making his first title defense. And it certainly looked as though Daniel Garcia, begrudgingly accepting the invite to corner McGuinness after just losing the title shot to him, would be turning, especially when Garcia emerged with a towel around his neck; it seemed almost too obvious that he was going to throw it in at some point. 

Nevertheless, the bout ensured to walk that line of expectation so carefully, with Garcia's presence the Chekhov's Gun in this scenario. He was visibly deflated as the action went on, even as McGuinness had his breakout moments, and made half-hearted attempts to help him in full view of the referee. But the beauty was all of this didn't hamper the match, like most interference had a tendency to, because it worked within the confines of the competition between the ropes. McGuinness didn't lose because of any outside interference that stretched the borders of belief, he lost because he was in the ring with someone technically superior to him and many years his younger. There were no big and audacious spots, just tight grappling and stiff striking, and the match started as much in that degree as it ended. 

When all was said and done and McGuinness had lost the bout, maybe that was the time for Garcia to turn. But everything up until that point had stayed true to what it promised to be, a clash between two of the best wrestlers produced by England, with a great atmosphere from their home crowd and a great story in the ring. If you were looking for excitement, then this probably wouldn't have been the match for you, but for someone who enjoys the sport of professional wrestling this was a really enjoyable 17 minutes.

Written by Max Everett

I feel like you would be hard-pressed to find many AEW fans, even the die-hard ones, who care much about Wardlow in 2025. The man's last match was 15 months ago; if you're looking to bring him back into the fold at this point, you should probably come up with something kinda special, creatively speaking. At the very least, whatever you do, probably don't have him be generic muscle for a heel stable again.

Or, alternatively, you could just do that again.

How big is the Don Callis Family now? We are reaching late 90s NWO levels right now. Does anyone care when there's a new member? Somehow Tony Khan's creative managed to take something naturally underwhelming (the 2025 return of Wardlow) and pair it with something equally underwhelming (the DCF getting a new member) to make a sort of underwhelming sandwich, with all of us unfortunately stuck in the middle.

It sucks that Swerve Strickland could be out of action for a while with his knee injury, but whoever thinks Wardlow managed by Don Callis is a comparative replacement needs to get their eyes checked. Or just listen to the London crowd, who, to use the local parlance, couldn't be arsed. Teasing Wardlow vs. Takeshita in this economy? Come on, man.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Sunday, The Hurt Syndicate took to London to defend their AEW World Tag Team Championships at Forbidden Door against Brodido (the team of Brody King and Bandido) and FTR. The match was nothing less than chaotic, with the appearance of Ricochet, Bishop Kaun, and Toa Liona spelling a messy end for The Hurt Syndicate's relatively clean and dominant AEW World Tag Team Championship reign. There is so much to unpack here, and it's overwhelmingly bad.

Let's start with a positive. Up until Ricochet, Kaun, and Liona ran interference, this match was pretty good. I'm not the biggest fan of FTR, but Bandido's performance. He is just so entertaining to watch, with agility that brought the O2 crowd to their feet. The actual flip Bandido delivered the finish was so cool, and even though I have my reservations about the decision to put the titles on Brodido — especially considering how it happened — I can appreciate Bandido as a standout performer. King and The Hurt Syndicate were solid workers as well, no complaints.

Now, we get into the weeds. We originally got whiffs of Tony Khan's signature overbooked match progression early on, when a Shatter Machine against Shelton Benjamin led to Bryan Danielson's comment on the unclear legal man in the match, but Ricochet, Kaun, and Liona's arrival on the scene tipped the scales, and allowed this non-Eliminator Triple Threat to devolve into complete nonsense. As the masked Ricochet, Kaun, and Liona took The Hurt Syndicate out of the equation, the match devolved into chaos, and not in the good way. Why do we need to run a Hurt Syndicate/Ricochet and Gates of Agony program now? Was it not enough for the Hurt Syndicate to lose their titles to Brodido, a team that got thrown together only recently? They couldn't even be involved in the decision? They deserved a better end to their tag title reign.

Things did not improve after the Hurt Syndicate was taken out of the match. Sunday's Forbidden Door match ended in a clunky, awkward manner (and that is being generous). Just after Bandido masterfully flipped onto Dax Harwood to attempt a pinfall, Cash Wheeler looked to break up the pin. Wheeler failed to reach the body of his comrade, but the referee's hand faltered and broke up the pin, as if he had. I know the referee tried to do what he could, but restarting the count just made things seem even more awkward, like he is obviously covered up for a mistake. If this is all premeditated — which it is, as is the nature of wrestling — then why freeze up and fumble? It's not like the referee didn't know Brodido was going over. It's just sloppy.

That's what the second half of this match was, sloppy. Given that Brodido are more of a mish-mashed alliance than an organic tag team, I can only imagine how half-baked their reign is going to be. If this match is indicative of the tag team division moving forward, I'm worried.

Written by Angeline Phu

This the most frustrating match on the entire Forbidden Door card and it's not even close. What could have been one of the best AEW World Championship matches in recent memory turned into another overbooked mess that seemed like it went on forever, but that's not what made it frustrating, that would come down to the fact that it could have been so different with a few adjustments.

The reason why MJF's AEW World Championship reign in 2023 was hated by so many people is that every AEW pay-per-view seemed to end with this flat note that takes the event out of the conversation of being fantastic. While beloved at the time, the All In London main event from 2023 has gained more haters by the week, Full Gear 2023 with Jay White is easily one of the worst main events in AEW history, and the only reason Worlds End 2023 doesn't get as much hate is because MJF lost. The one common denominator in all of those matches is that they were overbooked to the point of parody and sadly, that's what happened with this match for me.

Adding the stipulations of the title being able to change hands on a disqualification or a count out, as well as MJF not having to execute his contract, just seemed to muddy the waters of what was a very simple story. Hangman saw through Max's charade and knew he was going to wait until he'd been beaten senseless, slip through the back door and take the title by executing his contract. By making him execute it properly, it gave MJF the chance to be as vicious as possible knowing that this was his only shot, but undoing all of that set this match up to have so many bells and whistles that you couldn't hear yourself think.

The false-out ending with the foot on the bottom rope, Bryce Remsburg making himself far too known in another big man situation by being thrown from pillar to post, Mark Briscoe coming out for about five seconds, even the bleeding seemed a bit much considering the match that would end up following it, too much was going on. It was like taking a perfectly sized meal and then ordering about eight sides and dumping it all over the plate as you're just about to finish it, sometimes, less is more.

We've already seen Hangman and MJF have a great match this year. Their Revolution curtain-jerker is, in my opinion at least, one of the best AEW matches of the year so far. All they needed to do was tweak some of the missteps in that match and they would be grand. Instead, they went for the spectacular and it didn't land in the way it should have. After two incredible matches with Jon Moxley, one of which being just the right amount of overbooked for my taste, this was a step backwards for the cowboy. Let's hope that can change with his next opponent.

Written by Sam Palmer

Much like any AEW match that involves people being mutilated in some way, this is not going to be for everyone, but you can rely on your resident Wrestling Inc. degenerate who loves a little bit of the old ultraviolence to shower praise on this absolute car crash of a match.

The key to making this match feel wild and chaotic was putting emphasis on the real-life danger that surrounded it. Will Ospreay has two herniated discs in his neck, Kota Ibushi broke both of his ankles not too long ago, Kenny Omega had most of his intestines removed last year, and Hiroshi Tanahashi's knees have the flexibility of two ironing boards that have been left in a freezer. What I'm trying to say is that the good guys in this match aren't exactly the healthiest bunch. Throw in Darby Allin who can literally get hit by a bus and still want to climb the highest mountain in the world, and you've got a group of guys who could legitimately have their careers, and even lives shortened with one bad bump.

That danger was emphasized before the opening bell, with Ospreay getting a video packaged narrated by his fiancée Alex Windsor that likely left a few tears on people's faces in The O2 Arena. He was the main character of the match, he was the man who was in danger, and he thrived in that environment.

But don't sleep on the smaller moments that really hit home as well. The Young Bucks and The Golden Lovers having an interaction for the first time in seven years, Kenny Omega getting to mix it up with Gabe Kidd to continue what they started at Wrestle Dynasty, Tanahashi's knees actually getting him out of trouble on more than one occasion because of how battered they are, he could have ended up in a barbed wire table at one point and his knees said "You're not doing that Ace." 

The big bumps in this one, naturally, belonged to the only man who could really take them, Darby Allin. The fall from the top of the cage with Kidd was spectacular, getting thrown into the cage wall in the same way Spike Dudley used to get thrown around in ECW was nasty, and his impromptu ear piercing was as grotesque as anything that's happened in a wrestling ring this year, but it all added to the madness. Darby isn't an easy man to route for, but he has such good chemistry with everyone, but especially Moxley and Claudio that you can't help but watch him get murdered

AEW got to have their cake and eat it by giving fans the one-two punch of Tanahashi getting the decisive win, and Ospreay being killed by the Death Riders afterwards. The latter will hopefully have a better follow up to Bryan Danielson's execution last year now that the AEW World Championship isn't involved, and overall, chaos is what people wanted, so chaos was exactly what people got.

Written by Sam Palmer