AEW Forbidden Door 2025

A good show by AEW standards is a disappointment. This is the price one pays for keeping the bar so high. There wasn't a single bad match on the show -- everything was good! Yet, things felt... lacking.

The Forbidden Door didn't feel very forbidden. It felt half a Forbidden Door card and half an AEW PPV. A show where you were sure nothing was really going to happen, but lacked the exciting allure of previous years. "Including Talent from CMLL and Stardom," only to have it be just Persephone -- who I actually quite liked -- and Bozilla, who did great but hardly feels like she represents Stardom. She was in Marigold not long ago and still is a very western feeling wrestler in Style. Thekla, now in AEW, honestly feels more like Stardom representation from non-japanese wrestler than Bo does. This would be fine if there were other inclusions. Give me some CMLL wrestlers in a tag match or something! Give me Toni vs someone else -- Athena can wait. She's the eternal champion, she's not going anywhere.

When I was at Forbidden Door in 2024, 9 of 10 main card matches had a crossover element. This year it was 4 out of 9. More matches were pure AEW matches than a crossover. And while every match delivered, crossover or not, the show in aggregate felt monotonous. Some quick notes.

  • I still cannot by Copeland and Christian as a face tagteam. I don't care how excited I should feel that E&C are back together, Christian deserves to have his head split by Nick Wayne with a steel chair.
  • Kyle vs Hiromu was fine. Hiromu not having any of his entrance gear, while it didn't REALLY matter, kinda made things feel a bit... B-Tier. Like no one really cares.
  • Bozilla, while again not my first pick, did great. She was the best part of that match, as she was the element that made it cohesive.
  • Persephone giving her the razor's edge was sick.
  • Windsor is really good but god I hate her yelling her name like she's Pikachu.
  • The tag match felt like a really good TV match which means it was still good, but also like... it was goofy. Oh well, Brodido winning was a surprise.
  • ZSJ vs Nigel was a bit too dry for and I like ZSJ. But it was what it should be. They're so alike, for good and ill. Totally get why I see people dropping 5s on this though.
  • Swerve vs Okada was my biggest disappointment. Not because it wasn't good, but the ceiling for me was higher.
  • Athena vs Toni was probably the best match I'm not rating. It felt like the show -- every part was good, but didn't come together in the end.

Hangman Adam Page vs MJF

Weaker than it should have been but it's Hangman so the bar only goes so low. The whole story line before the PPV left a bad taste in my mouth, undoing one of the better segments in their feud with a threat of extremely dubious credibility. I feel like they did they're best with some goofy stipulations and story beats given to them. It works, but I just don't feel like their chemistry comes together in the ring as well as it does on the mics. The ending might have been a bit overbooked, but at least it played into the story.

  • The fucking reinforced table??? What was up with that???
  • MJF's FUCKING KNEES ON THAT PILEDRIVER
  • I feel like the weird stipulations hurt this match because they didn't ever TRULY play into anything. Like sure you have the spot with Hangman and the ring, but that's fake as hell. No one thought he'd DQ himself. You could do the rest of the match without the stips and it would still read right.
  • TK confirmed you can no longer do a MITB style cash in so LET HIM USE THE CONTRACT. HE CAN EARN A MATCH IF YOU WANNA DO THE REMATCH OH MY GOD.

The Big Stupid Cage Match

I love stupid, wanton violence. The Ear spot was INCREDIBLE and DISGUSTING and the match ended on such a happy note 🙃

Ibushi and Darby took some GNARLY bumps in this match. Not that Ibushi FELL FAR but more in the sense of "lemme just put my face inside that that object". The "Get off the ladder, grandpa" spot warmed my heart.

A silly match, a needlessly violent match, and good, tasty junk food. It's like Ice Cream -- it's not healthy to eat all the time but it does actually have a lot nutrition buried under all that sugar. It helped save the show for me, but I wish the energy from the last two matches were spread out better... not that that's really possible

You can also check my dropkickd for the original versions of some of these reviews.

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