Forbidden Door 2024 Review (so far)
Making my way through Forbidden Door right now and have been enjoying it for the most part with a few disappointments.
This one was super surprising with how much I liked it. MJF's match with Tanahashi at last year's Forbidden Door was pretty abysmal but Hechicero is a much better opponent for him. He's an old school brawler / technician luchador and I felt that there was a lot of chemistry between these two. Major props to AEW for bringing in these more traditional luchadors to introduce the American audience to a different aspect of lucha libre.
2. Hiroshi Tanahashi & The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) vs. The Elite (Kazuchika Okada, Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson)
This wasn't great. The allure of Okada vs. Tanahashi is well past its expiration date as Tanahashi just can't perform at a high level anymore. A trios match is exactly where I want to see him nowadays and generally I like The Acclaimed but wouldn't call them a team that you can count on to do a lot of heavy lifting. The Young Bucks do their Young Bucks thing with nothing of note. An average match that maybe would have been better further up the card.
3. Bryan Danielson vs. Shingo Takagi
A good showcase of both of these guys. This was good if not all that surprising. Takagi and Danielson work great together and their styles mesh really well. You know this match and you've seen it and you want to see it some more.
4. Toni Storm (w/Luther & Mariah May) (c) vs. Mina Shirakawa (w/Mariah May)
I was super excited for this because this storyline is so outlandish and boppo. As a fan of old school wrestling, there's nothing I like more than two dudes fighting over a woman, and so glad that we live in a time where not only do we get to see men treating women as objects, but also women treating women as objects. The match itself was a bit of a let down and unfortunately I'm going to pin this on Mina. I think her offense here just didn't look good. There were times where she struggled to lift Toni Storm (in a non kayfabe way) and many of her moves looked awkward when used against someone with a substantial height/weight difference. I wish there was more brawling in this - I wanted something that felt a bit more like a grudge match and I feel that's when Mina was really shining. I was disappointed at the outcome as well - I would have liked to see some kind of fun or interesting twist in the story to keep it moving along.
5. Orange Cassidy vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
I wasn't looking forward to this match because Orange Cassidy has been a guy that I've been over since about 1 month into his reign of terror with the Continental title, but I appreciate that they're trying to something different with this character. This is a Zack Sabre Jr ass match and goes into the good but not surprising category.
6. Hook, Katsuyori Shibata & Samoa Joe vs. The Learning Tree (Big Bill & Chris Jericho) & Jeff Cobb
A much better and faster paced trios match than the one earlier. This match was good because it had a high pace and everyone got to do a cool spot which is often times what I want out of a star studded trios match.
7. Mark Briscoe vs. El Phantasmo vs. Konosuke Takeshita vs. Lio Rush vs. Jack Perry vs. Dante Martin
A solid ladder match that delivers all the things you want out of these Money in the Bank matches. Nothing too surprising or crazy in here and everyone manages to hit their spots without too much clumsiness. Takeshita's Blue Thunder Bomb through the tables was the highlight of the match and looked great.
8. Mercedes Mone (c) vs. Stephanie Vaquer (c)
The match I was looking forward to the most on this card, but also one that I was slightly disappointed in. That may just be because the amount of buzz this match has received may have set my expectations a little too high. This was pretty good but it felt like Mone was very clumsy in this. I've seen Vaquer wrestle quite a bit in Mexico and she looks much more fluid down there. Of course that's the kind of fluidity that comes from wrestling the same 8 women over and over 3-4 times a week for years. I've never been a huge fan of Mone and feel like she struggled to mesh with Vaquer's style. There was some very visible clumsy exchanges and botches and I'm more inclined to put that on the wrestler who's wrestled a WWE style for most of her career. I was delighted at how the crowd got behind Vaquer though - once again props to AEW for taking a chance on a different kind of luchadora versus looking for whoever could flip the most.
So far a really enjoyable show with no super major surprises or anything that I would call amazing, but it's been a great showcase of CMLL and STARDOM talent.
