After almost a week of anticipation, The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer finally released his ratings for AEW x NJPW's Forbidden Door, and needless to say, they were relatively predictable in the best possible way. Sure, some fans wibble with a rating one way or another, but for the most part, the information matched the eye test, with one lone exception: Will Ospreay versus Orange Cassidy.
That's right, despite being the runaway best bout on the show, with the match winning ‘best of the night‘ honors from the F4W/WO fans voters, Meltzer only gave the match 4.75 stars, tied with the opening match featuring JAS and Minoru Suzuki versus Eddie Kingston/Wheeler Yuta/ Shota Umino for the highest rating on the card. Meltzer's writeup features no real talk about any bad in-ring work or botch spots and instead commits nearly 40 percent of its words to the return of Katsuyori Shibata, who has spent his time training up the stateside students at the LA Dojo.
So naturally, one brave soul, @JesusJ923 on Twitter, asked Meltzer directly why the match wasn't a 5-star and received a very weird response indeed.
There is no such thing as a why not. It's a why. https://t.co/lBnMWoWG7v
— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) July 1, 2022
Huh? What kind of Yoda logic is that?
Taking him at his word, I think Meltzer is trying to say that a match doesn't start at a 5 and slowly gets ticked down to a 4, 3, 2, or even a 1, but instead begins at a neutral spot and then points are either added or subtracted as the event goes on.
If that's the case, the match must have had one too many things go wrong, or one too many things not go right for it to clear the perfect rating bar. *sigh* oh well, at least Orange Cassidy will live to fight another day in his pursuit of the 5-star match that has eluded him through his 18 years of in-ring work.
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