Forbidden Door

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

As DavidB6937 said, I would think it's pretty clear as to why. 

Honestly though, I genuinely think there are people on this forum who would be more receptive to verbal takedowns of their families than they are anything that could be perceived as criticism of AEW. 

I'm not saying you lean quite that far, Hannibal - but I haven't come across anyone on here who has said anything negative about AEW in bad faith. 

I don’t think it was that clear, or certainly wasn’t to me, but if I try and understand I’m assuming you were opposed because the build up was taking up too much TV time and pushing storylines away (in the way MJF is almost forgotten at this point). If that’s right, I get it, because I felt the same. And had my friend not bought it, I certainly wouldn’t have. But it was a really good show, one of the best in terms of match quality. Which does make me want to see it become an annual thing. However they need to do a better build and not let it interfere with TV as much.

[RedRooster]

I think, what I would say to that @Hannibal Scorch, is that pretty much every AEW PPV ends up being excellent, if a bit on the long side. I’m not sure that there’s a way of doing a show like this without having it seriously impact on your television show. For me, it breaks up storylines and feuds I’m invested in. I’m concerned the upcoming ROH PPV will do the same thing, but we’ll see I suppose. 

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, RedRooster said:

As I mentioned, I didn't watch the show, but if anything was going to encourage me to do so it would be Taz on the announce desk. It's impossible not to have fun when he's commentating, his enthusiasm is so bloody infectious. 

Was always the way. IM A FRENCHMAN, IM A FRENCH TICKLE GUY!!

[Chris B]

While I'd have preferred it without Ospreay, that was a fantastic show. One thing that really impressed me was how they introduced and showcased so many people - considering how many multi-person matches there were, nothing felt over-booked or crowded. Everyone got a chance to stand out and impress. The commentary throughout was fantastic too, constantly getting across everything you needed to know.

It felt like a big-time show throughout. And the red-hot crowd throughout really helped. Everyone felt like a star.

I totally get it feeling like a comic-book crossover that's getting in the way of the regular show, but this was a fantastic introduction to pretty much everyone. It also impressed me how, over the last few years, Hangman has gone from being a guy who would have felt out of place in that four-way to being absolutely comfortably part of it. And I found White/Cole distrusting each other and betraying each other hilarious.

For me, the standout was the opener. Just a great mix of veterans and up-and-comers. Hopefully, those who struggled to get Suzuki got why people were so excited this time - that really felt like NJPW Suzuki, possibly for the first time.

[The King of Old School]

8 minutes ago, Chris B said:

While I'd have preferred it without Ospreay, that was a fantastic show.

I don't know much about Ospreay the person, but he's everything i would want in a heel wrestler. What a fantastic dickhead. Incredible in the ring too. Think him/Orange was my match of the night.

Agree with everything else in the post though.

Edited June 28, 2022 by The King of Old School

[sevendaughters]

thought Tanahashi-Moxley was great and I hope NJPW are looking at this and thinking (remembering?) 'oh wow you can do a big time main event with all the emotions and have it under 20 min'.

[air_raid]

17 minutes ago, sevendaughters said:

thought Tanahashi-Moxley was great and I hope NJPW are looking at this and thinking (remembering?) 'oh wow you can do a big time main event with all the emotions and have it under 20 min'.

The funny thing is, there's no hard and fast rules to what can and can't be a well-contested and exciting "proper main event" or title fight by what time constraints, completely dependent on setting, style and the wrestlers involved. When I was a workrate pervert in my early 20s I used to think less than 25 for a main event was ripping off the public - that was clearly bullshit. Then I went through a spell where I acknowledged a 5 minute match could be great, but you shouldn't do it for a marquee title match or main event, then Lesnar vs Goldberg at Mania Sunny Logo proved me wrong. Shortly after that, my long-held belief that the 60 minute match was an outdated novelty was shattered when Omega vs Okada at Dominion gripped me from start to finish, then a year later they constructed a compelling piece of work that went even longer. 

Of course, this is entirely subjective and depends on your viewer's attention span and willingness to dedicate X number of minutes a time to professional wrestling. A lot of people might not be able to maintain excitement for long periods (oo-er) and even those of us that can, can probably only do it for certain promotions, wrestlers or combinations.

[Jesse]

Considering how crap the build-up to this was, and how generally bad AEW are at introducing wrestlers, especially overseas ones. Maybe they should have started with Forbidden Door, promote it as a big crossover event, show some New Japan highlight reels for the lads, but otherwise have it start off on a stronger foot by being a big fun supershow and if you want to involve the NJPW lot more after that you have more audience buy-in and a bunch of PPV footage of them interacting with your big stars and looking impressive.

Obviously there's a bunch of business reasons why that's terrifying and probably not the best tack to take but given the injuries and the lackluster build on AEW itself I can't imagine they were shifting tickets based on what was happening each week on tv

[sevendaughters]

47 minutes ago, air_raid said:

The funny thing is, there's no hard and fast rules to what can and can't be a well-contested and exciting "proper main event" or title fight by what time constraints, completely dependent on setting, style and the wrestlers involved. When I was a workrate pervert in my early 20s I used to think less than 25 for a main event was ripping off the public - that was clearly bullshit. Then I went through a spell where I acknowledged a 5 minute match could be great, but you shouldn't do it for a marquee title match or main event, then Lesnar vs Goldberg at Mania Sunny Logo proved me wrong. Shortly after that, my long-held belief that the 60 minute match was an outdated novelty was shattered when Omega vs Okada at Dominion gripped me from start to finish, then a year later they constructed a compelling piece of work that went even longer. 

Of course, this is entirely subjective and depends on your viewer's attention span and willingness to dedicate X number of minutes a time to professional wrestling. A lot of people might not be able to maintain excitement for long periods (oo-er) and even those of us that can, can probably only do it for certain promotions, wrestlers or combinations.

well, quite. NJPW have been exclusively doing 30-35 minuters (I think nearly all of their big shows in Japan have adhered to this in 2022). I am happy for them to be exceedingly brief or unexpectedly long. But right now I just expect the same length and patterned approximately the same, building to the callbacks/reversals/finisher spam epic dance. Tana-Moxley had a little of that, but it was 18 minutes of intensity rather than stretching it out with garbage and florid drama.

[Hannibal Scorch]

4 hours ago, Jesse said:

 I can't imagine they were shifting tickets based on what was happening each week on tv

They didn't need to. It pretty much sold out on the day tickets went on sale. It's also done over 100,000 buys based on early numbers so whilst smaller then regular AEW events, its impressive.

[Guest]

They have over delivered in Chicago market in terms of show quality, it’s that memory that gets people back the next time over what they see on tv

[Keith Houchen]

43 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

They didn't need to. It pretty much sold out on the day tickets went on sale. It's also done over 100,000 buys based on early numbers so whilst smaller then regular AEW events, its impressive.

I think this shows that if the TV isn’t good, the PPVs always deliver. I think Forbidden Door will go some way when people weigh up purchasing future PPVs as they’ll be confident it’ll be worth it. 
 

I wonder if that’s more to do with PPVs being special and not a monthly thing that isn’t essential viewing. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

5 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

I think this shows that if the TV isn’t good, the PPVs always deliver. I think Forbidden Door will go some way when people weigh up purchasing future PPVs as they’ll be confident it’ll be worth it. 
 

I wonder if that’s more to do with PPVs being special and not a monthly thing that isn’t essential viewing. 

I think it is. Because pre network the only shows I’d pay for were Royal Rumble and Mania. None of the B Shows felt worth the £15 charge, and they were monthly. A PPV every 3 or 4 months, and with matches you want to see, is much easier to justify paying for.  Also the fact they have delivered constantly will help with that as well. Although, and I love to get my moneys worth, no more then 4 hours, including pre show.

[DavidB6937]

Depends what you're looking for in a PPV though. Do I want to spend money on a regular basis on events that are basically just a bunch of good matches? Not really. I want pay offs to good stories that have been happening on the weekly shows. That's what AEW has done so well for me and why this event wasn't up to much for me. It ate into their decent weekly output.

And to be fair, WWEs PPVs tend to be alright despite their weekly output being a struggle. So we don't really need another company to operate in that fashion.

[FLips]

33 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Depends what you're looking for in a PPV though. Do I want to spend money on a regular basis on events that are basically just a bunch of good matches? Not really. I want pay offs to good stories that have been happening on the weekly shows. That's what AEW has done so well for me and why this event wasn't up to much for me. It ate into their decent weekly output.

That's whereabouts I stand with it too. I didn't buy it but after all the praise I heard I looked into it. The opening 6 man with Eddie and everyone was brilliant but then what followed was another tag match and then a four way and then another tag match and it wasn't long before I was completely burnt out and just stopped watching. There were no stories to invest in so just endless tag matches where everyone was trying to have match of the night was a killer. It very much followed the New Japan setup of just filling a card with tag matches which isn't for me.