La Zona Muerta

There’s something special about pro wrestling when it hits, when you get the truly top level stuff. I don’t mean that middling crap you see from time to time, the going through the motions, interchangeable wrestling you see on most Monday nights or even some Wednesday nights (!); I mean the stuff you will remember at the end of the year when you tot up all of the graps you watched. The matches that will stick with you.

Forbidden Door was host to at least two of those matches, and depending on how you’re inclined, maybe up to FIVE of them. There was only one real clunker, and even that had a very welcome surprise return to latch on to.

There’s a reason people make so much of AEW on pay per view. They literally do pay per view better than any wrestling company ever has. Was it successful as a pay per view? As a crossover event?

Read on, MacDuff.

I saw on Sunday morning someone say that Kenny Omega was “washed.”

Respectfully, sir, you can cram it with walnuts.

“Washed” is such a dumb term, one that should really be excised from fan vocabulary. Is Omega what he was ten years ago? No. Is seventy five or eighty percent of what Kenny Omega was ten years ago enough to still make him one of the top wrestlers the world?

I dunno. You tell me. You go watch him and Zack Sabre Junior (another guy whom I see some people sleep on simply because he’s been around so long) and you fucking tell me he’s “washed.”

Arguably, even if Kenny is slower or less athletic than he was (and I don’t think that’s a given, necessarily; he can sure still turn it on in the big matches), he’s a much SMARTER worker today. The transitions are better, less “stop and do a spot.” The sympathy he evokes is greater. Yes, he’s closer to the end of his career than the beginning, but I think he’s aged more like a fine wine than a wrestler who has held on fo too long.

Then you have Zack who is still a wonderful, creative mind. Imagine if Nick Bockwinkel had a playful side, if he liked toying with his food. That’s gonna get you partway, maybe, to what ZSJ is. He hit one of the best counters I’ve ever, EVER seen, taking an attempt at the One Winged Angel from Kenny and turning it into a flying armbar. God, that was cool. Interestingly, ZSJ did not target Kenny’s TUM TUM TROUBLE, and the one who had abdominal trouble was ZSJ himself, as Kenny hit stomps and strikes to Jack’s stomach. Man, does Kenny chop HARD with those bear paws of his. ZSJ turned another One Winged Angel attempt into a triangle choke, but a SHOOT POWERBOMB, a Kamigoye (shoutout to Kota Ibushi) and then finally, the actual One Winged Angel was enough to seal an instant classic of a match for Kenny, punching his way, presumably to a rematch with Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Gotch bless Kenny Omega. Zed Ess Jay, too. Love that guy.

I skipped to talking about this match because I loved it so much but the opening match with the Young Bucks, Unbound Co. (sigh, that hurts my Ungovernable heart) and EL SKY TEAM was nothing to sneeze at. I told some of my friends so what if I could guess like seventy five percent of the spots before they happened; the match was still excellent. Mistico brought his A game, my big, burly boy SHINGO did his thing and the Bucks, well… they’re the Bucks. It was perhaps obvious the guy there to lose was Titan, but that’s okay. Titan still rules. I genuinely can’t think of better opening match wrestlers than the Bucks, and by no means do I mean that in any sort of pejorative sense. You want to get a crowd rocking and rolling? You spell relief Y O U N G B U C K S. I hope BIG DAVE was there to see the Bucks hit the tried and true Meltzer Driver for the three.

I had feared Jon Moxley and Bandido might have had too great of a styles clash (no, not THAT Styles Clash) to overcome in their match together, but they also ended up having a great match. The problem with it wasn’t so much Moxley winning (although if you wanted to give Bandido a boost, that would have been the time with ten thousand people screaming for him)… it was the fact that Bandido is still the Ring of Honor champion but he gets beaten like all the time. Dude can NEVER get to that next level and I have no idea as to why. Why do they insist on beating Bandido? Why do they insist on showing every ROH champ getting their asses beat in AEW? I said this before about Athena, but it extends to everyone wearing ROH gold; ROH people see those letters A, E and W and its like fucking KRYPTONITE. At one point in the match, Moxley tore at Bandido’s mask, perhaps a bit more than he intended to and, needless to say, I could now identify Bandido in a police line up. At any rate, I feared the styles clash but they meshed fairly well. Bandido got to do his outstanding strength spots, and Moxley was a decent enough base for some of the Lucha stuff.

I wish I liked Thekla and Starlight Kid better. I wish I liked Thekla’s matches better in general because she pretty literally carried this show on her back, a fact she even flat out said on Saturday’s episode of Collision. That match should have been a wild fight, a brawling WAR, but such was not to be. I am reliably told by friends who are more in tune with the Joshi side of things that Starlight was not the wrestler to bring in for that, but… c’est la vie. The match was… fine, I guess. I wanted to see Thekla gig STARDOM president Taro Okada, perhaps with the teeth on Starlight Kid’s mask. I think that ultimately this was just the wrong kind of layout for a match where the company ace was trying to defend her company from the evil, overbearing heel. Not a total success for ME, but some people really enjoyed it, I’m sure.

Shota Umino versus PAC happened. PAC delivered an Awesome Bomb on Amino to the outside through a table. The table had more charisma than the contemptible Umino, begging for audience cheers.

Edge had another match where everyone freaks out to be able to sing his song but then revert into WWE mode and sit on their hands for the match. You could have heard a pin drop for like two thirds of the match with him, Christian and THE DAWGS. Even the ref was put to sleep knocked out.

None of that matters, though; Jay White returned to drop David Finlay right on his stupid face, so there was that. I guess Edge and Christian won? I was too busy chatting with a friend and marking out for the Switchblade to pay much attention to the finish. Let’s hope that THIS TIME, Jay White can actually get some momentum going, remain unhurt and do some cool things.

What a Cinderella story it’s been for young Maya World. Think of it; she basically got a standby match in AEW because someone else was dumb and wasted their own opportunity. Because Maya was a professional, she, along with her tag partner Hyan, won spots on the full time AEW roster and after some unfortunate injuries to women in the tournament bracket and the tragic real life passing of her brother, Maya World got to compete in the biggest match of her career; a pay per view bout with Mercedes Moné for the Owen Hart cup. You can’t be stunned that Moné won, certainly, and World going over would have been an amazing moment, but her stock is undoubtedly so much higher than it was going into the tournament and that’s really all you can ask. That’s pretty much the goal of wrestling, yeah? The finish saw Maya wrapping Mercedes’ own hold on Mercedes but Mercedes was able to reverse it as the announcers begged Maya to reach the ropes. That was a really touching, poignant moment, laden with drama. Obviously Mercedes got the win but Maya may well have come out the better for it. Always have your gear, kids, and never say “no” when the opportunity come a knockin’.

Maybe this was established on the Countdown program, I’m not sure, but apparently the semi-main event, this sort of new cage match, in this tremendously large, round steel cage is called Death Bed, the Bed that Eats Death Door. Perhaps they meant “Death’s Door,” I dunno. The good guys and bad guys immediately hit the WE ARE NOT YOUR KIND for the highlight reel. Also for the highlight reel; a Nintendo Entertainment System made an appearance. That’s something, I suppose. There were some fun spots; a thoughtful orange powered hydration break provided by Willow Nightingale, a fun showdown between Protokada and beautiful Konosuke Takeshita, Darby Allin taking tacks FACE FIRST (good LORD), Lio Rush in a bag (I guessed it first, suckers)… a Terry Funk ladder spot (“Terry Funk ain’t wear no mouth guard”), all sorts. Listen, this type of nonsense isn’t really my jam, but people seemed to like it. Very much the whole “Avengers Assemble” type thing. At some point, apparently Kevin Knight ran afoul of a BOOBYTRAP planted by Darby Allin and, uh… exploded? Of course I’m not kidding. Shades of the old Spy vs. Spy video game, to really date myself. I guess Andrade turned face with some bad language and a dirty kick to the dick. Good, maybe people will stop complaining about how many people are in the Don Callis Family, now (of course not). Mark Briscoe hit a Jay Driller on Jake Doyle (!) and secured the win. Like I say, very much not my thing, but I know some of my peeps loved it; if they want to service the fans who like that sort of thing, then fine, I suppose. I hope Tony Khan pays for ‘Gimme Back My Bullets‘ when Mark gets his title shot.

And then there was the main event; an exhibition from two absolute masters of the craft working at the highest possible level. Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland are generational performers. Yes, some people will be mad about the blood. The comic book entrances*. The mid match monologue (me! I’M one of those people).

So what?

These two guys are DEVOTED to pro wrestling. They aren’t looking to use it to jump into movies or whatever. Well, Swerve is not afraid of branching out, but he’s not using wrestling as the means to an end, unlike some folks. They love it. They breathe it. And they give us a match like this, where they bled and sacrificed. For us.

Look, when the mid match monologue is the only nit I can pick, it must have been one helluva contest.

Swerve took a lot of the match early on, concentrating, of course, on Ospreay’s compromised neck. Unfortunately for Swerve, the healing hands of MARINA SHAFIR were simply too strong, as were the TITANIUM BOLTS in Ospreay’s neck. Ospreay bled early, and it looked like he was bleeding pretty well (perhaps getting gigging lessons as well as armbar lessons from one J. Moxley) but MAN OH MAN, Ospreay’s blade job was NOTHING compared to what Swerve did later. There was this tremendous sequence where Ospreay tried to hit a Styles Clash to Swerve on the floor and, when he ultimately failed to hit the move, he instead swung Swerve probably as hard as humanly possible at the steel ring steps and Swerve came up GUSHING blood, so much blood that they were smearing it around, stomping through it, all sorts. Swerve ate a Styles Clash into the announce table. Swerve gave Ospreay a neck breaker on the ring apron (and Prince Nana hit him with some Prince Nana brand hot coffee). They pulled out all the stops here, trading signature spots, elbows upon elbows upon elbows, the dreaded mid match monologue (ugh) and finally both men retreated to opposite corners. The Death Riders appeared to lend their HOT SUPPORT to Ospreay and Swerve and Ospreay clashed one more time in the middle of the ring. There was a flurry of strikes, including both men borrowing some moves from a certain absent cowboy. Finally, Swerve hit a sick, SICK JML Driver and House Call combo. Ospreay ROARED as the Death Riders cheered him on, absorbing the neck damage (hopefully Marina and her healing hands were on deck). Ospreay fired up and hit, in escalating succession, the Paradigm Shift, then the Death Rider and finally, the ultimate move (in AEW, anyway); the Tiger Driver ’91. One, two, three. Ospreay won and when they say it was a hard fought battle, this battle was TRULY hard fought. Possibly just on the wrong side of too much for some, but for me, for the crowd… this was a dramatic battle worthy of crowning both the Owen Cup winner and man going to face the champion in Wembley Stadium. It will be a long time before I forget some of the key parts of this match. It was top notch work and for me, landed just right, the right amount of anger and heat and grit and determination.

Overall, could I say this was a tremendous AEW pay per view? Yes, of course. Was it a successful “Forbidden Door” crossover event? Ah, probably not, but the names of the shows don’t particularly matter. Mostly. It’s hard to be a sourpuss after seeing Ospreay and Swerve leave it all in the ring and knowing that it’s gonna lead to Omega / Ospreay one more time.

And now? I sleep.

*Did these people get mad when Prince Devitt came out as Venom / Carnage or as the Punisher in the Tokyo Dome (and guess what the original “Demon” persona was? It’s a dude in Venom / Carnage drag, dog) or when the Time Splitters showed up in a DeLorean? Howzabout the approximately eight hundred times Volador Jr. came out in Arena Mexico with various MCU inspired costumes or a dozen variations on Venom (what is it with wrestlers and Venom, anyway? Volador was JUST wearing Venom underarmor this Saturday)? Cibernetico, when he was exiled to the indies, changed his name to CIBER THE MAIN MAN, and basically wore the same thing Swerve wore on Sunday for Gotch’s sake! Niebla Roja carries He-Man’s SWORD OF POWER to the ring, and that’s not some wacky 2026 movie tie in… he’s done that for nearly a decade! Hiroshi Tanahashi, possibly the greatest babyface wrestler of all time, whether you knew it or not, referenced Kamen Rider Kabuto in literally every single match he had from roughly 2008 to the end of his career, and YOU PROBABLY DID IT ALONG WITH HIM AT LEAST ONCE. Crazy entrances referencing… stuff used to be the thing, and, unless they told you HEY, THIS IS A COMIC BOOK REFERENCE, it doesn’t hurt your enjoyment one iota if Swerve comes out dressed as Mr. Terrific or Lobo. It’s a touch of corporate synergy, and it’s a shout out to dorks like me. It will be FINE.