Rocky Romero opens up about last year’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view.
The first-ever event took place in Chicago Illinois and was plagued with injuries and COVID that kept a number of stars from both companies off the card. This included CM Punk on the AEW side and Tetsuya Naito on the NJPW side. Romero addressed this bad luck on the latest edition of the AEW Unrestricted podcast.
It definitely felt going into Forbidden Door [2022], that there was like a Forbidden Door curse, like we should have not have done this, we should not have run these two companies together [laughs]. You just started seeing wrestlers fall off through injuries, through COVID, there were travel issues. Everything under the sun that could possibly go wrong, definitely went wrong. Me and TK definitely had some late nights trying to figure out what to do and who was available and going back and forth between the Japan side and trying to figure it all out. So far, so good this year, knock on wood.
Despite all those limitations the inaugural Forbidden Door was a well-received show from fans and analysts. Romero agrees, saying that the show ended up being excellent event though there was a lot of obstacles to overcome.
Yeah, last year obviously was, I think, just an incredible show. The crowd alone had a very unique energy compared to maybe some other shows last year and that helped to make the atmosphere just incredible. [It was] probably my favorite pay-per-view that I’ve seen in a long time. I’m biased because I’m part of it, but for sure I thought it was a great pay-per-view and I expect that this year is gonna blow last year’s out of the water.
AEW and NJPW will present Forbidden Door 2 this Sunday from Toronto. You can check out the latest card for that event here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)