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While AEW and NJPW’s joint event Forbidden Door has already announced and teased a multitude of dream matches, it would appear that fans will have to take at least a couple of names off of their fantasy bookings.
After an early morning tweet from Andrade El Idolo, seemingly sarcastically thanking Lucha promotions CMLL and AAA for preventing him from working with NJPW, it has since been confirmed by Luchablog that Andrade will not be on the Forbidden Door Pay-Per-View, and the Lucha Bros will not be on as well.
https://twitter.com/AndradeElIdolo/status/1536220228291645443
According to the report, Andrade El Idolo “was booked on Forbidden Door but is no longer booked on Forbidden Door,” meaning that we perhaps could have seen some sort of reunion with his former tag team partner Tetsuya Naito.
Whether being a match between the two, a team-up, or even just an in-ring encounter, Naito and Andrade in the same ring was certainly one of the more logical fanservice routes in a Pay-Per-View built on dream matches and fanservice. Of course, the actual plans for Andrade and Naito are unknown, but it could have been a neat storyline for both stars.
There hasn’t been any official statements from Penta Oscuro or Rey Fenix as of the time of this writing, though Bryan Alvarez has reported that their exclusion from the show is not a recent development, and it should be noted that Andrade will be speaking with Hugo Savinovich on Lucha Libre Online this Friday, where we will hopefully get more clarification on the situation.
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Not all doors in wrestling are open, AEW fans.
The concept of cross-promotional work has been one of the dominant forces in wrestling for the past few years. Other than the obvious Forbidden Door, New Japan has been working with Impact, and AEW has a healthy relationship with AAA that includes multiple AEW roster members being current and former champions there. Conversely, while CMLL has historically worked with NJPW for years, their relationship with AAA, based on previous comments from Konnan, doesn’t appear to be very positive and has had ripple effects in the wrestling business.
The situation as a whole with Andrade, the Lucha Bros, and Forbidden Door seems like a complex mess of contracts, company relations, and other red tape, but at least one thing can be taken from it: There will always be closed doors in wrestling. Collaboration is a beautiful thing and can lead to amazing buzz and results – just look at Kenny Omega’s belt collector arc and every collaboration NJPW and AEW have had so far – but these are still wrestling promotions, each with their own bookers, long-term plans, stars they wish to protect, and yes, egos.
It is never a fun thing to hear about talent that wants to wrestle other talent and cannot because of issues with the higher-ups. It was not too long ago that AEW and NJPW were having issues with each other, with Chris Jericho lamenting in his post-Wrestle Kingdom press conference about how they seemingly wouldn’t do more together. Thankfully, a lot has changed since then, but it shows that not everyone can work together all the time, and Forbidden Door should be cherished and celebrated as much as possible.
Again, the idea of Andrade working with Tetsuya Naito would have been a great moment, Lucha Bros – if there were any plans for them in the show – would have guaranteed a great match and, on a show that has already been marred by multiple injuries, learning that more wrestlers cannot work a show due to corporate reasons is sad. On the bright side, AEW’s roster is stacked enough to withstand these blows, and through Tony Khan has been jumping through plenty of hoops as booker, Forbidden Door should still prove to be a success.
