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Chris B

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11 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

The NJPW representative in the All Atlantic Championship match will be decided by a 4 man tournament in of itself on NJPW’s shows next Monday and Tuesday 

On Monday Clark Connors and Tomoaki Honma face off in one qualifier while Tomohiro Ishii faces Yoshinobu Kanemaru in the other qualifier 

The two winners then face off on the following night for the right to be in the title match next Sunday

So really that’s just a long-winded way of telling us that it’s Ishii in the 4-way at Forbidden Door? I’m 1000% up for that. Hopefully Miro’s in there too!

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11 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

I’d assume Andrade would have been involved with Naito in some sort of tag given their LIJ history. 

AAA not allowing contracted wrestlers wrestle New Japan guys due to New Japans working agreement with CMLL, Hilarious.

Andrade likely isn't even contracted to AAA, while FTR are seemingly working the show yet have AAA titles. So it's probably more murky lucha politics than a strictly "you're under contract to us" deal.

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I wonder how difficult AEW are finding dealing with NJPW. My vague understanding is that NJPW can expect potential partners and long-term partners to prove themselves as not just having their own interests at heart - so I wonder if they're not being as forthcoming with info, or expecting AEW to help promote what NJPW are doing as well.

Like, why on earth would AEW have one of their top babyfaces explicitly call out Okada if Okada isn't going to be there? (Assuming that's true - I still don't think a Jay White/Adam Cole vs Hangman/Okada match is out of the question). Why would you slot in Lance Archer into a somewhat random match?

I reckon it's because NJPW have quite a list of demands before they'll trust AEW with their biggest opportunities and longer-term storylines. They had to explicitly build up the Okada/Jay White match, even if Okada/Hangman was out of the question (and making Hangman and Adam Cole both look like idiots short-term). They had to prominently feature Lance Archer because Lance is going to the G1 tournament this year. And obviously, this is all while rewriting their own storylines because Punk isn't getting his Tanahashi match any more.

My assumption isn't that they're doing all of this to make THIS year's Forbidden Door a slam-dunk success. This is about proving to NJPW that they're a trusted partner, so that next year, we can get Okada in a headline match, Hiromu Takahashi looking awesome, and presumably get Ibushi for a while to work with Omega. 

Like, I think it's not working in AEW's favour right now, and a lot of people will question if NJPW is worth the effort. But I think Khan believes it is, and is gambling on longer-term rather than shorter-term gains here. There's still the potential for a better-built supershow, when more are healthy and available.

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1 minute ago, Chris B said:

I wonder how difficult AEW are finding dealing with NJPW. My vague understanding is that NJPW can expect potential partners and long-term partners to prove themselves as not just having their own interests at heart - so I wonder if they're not being as forthcoming with info, or expecting AEW to help promote what NJPW are doing as well.

Like, why on earth would AEW have one of their top babyfaces explicitly call out Okada if Okada isn't going to be there? (Assuming that's true - I still don't think a Jay White/Adam Cole vs Hangman/Okada match is out of the question). Why would you slot in Lance Archer into a somewhat random match?

I reckon it's because NJPW have quite a list of demands before they'll trust AEW with their biggest opportunities and longer-term storylines. They had to explicitly build up the Okada/Jay White match, even if Okada/Hangman was out of the question (and making Hangman and Adam Cole both look like idiots short-term). They had to prominently feature Lance Archer because Lance is going to the G1 tournament this year. And obviously, this is all while rewriting their own storylines because Punk isn't getting his Tanahashi match any more.

My assumption isn't that they're doing all of this to make THIS year's Forbidden Door a slam-dunk success. This is about proving to NJPW that they're a trusted partner, so that next year, we can get Okada in a headline match, Hiromu Takahashi looking awesome, and presumably get Ibushi for a while to work with Omega. 

Like, I think it's not working in AEW's favour right now, and a lot of people will question if NJPW is worth the effort. But I think Khan believes it is, and is gambling on longer-term rather than shorter-term gains here. There's still the potential for a better-built supershow, when more are healthy and available.

Tony Khan was interviewed recently and he was asked about this. Obviously he was very complementary about the working relationship, but did say he hoped this would become a yearly event, not just a one and done.

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The “trust” for me has been built with the drip feeding of new Japan talent into aew. Started with lower card and the dads and has built up I don’t think this would be happening if the trust wasn’t there already . 

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Maybe New Japan has changed massively since I last watched it properly just before the pandemic, or maybe I just expected too much from this show, but doing a big cross-promotional pay per view without the likes of Okada, Naito, Shingo, Takahashi, etc. feels so disappointing.

Even someone like Toru Yano! Fly him over to have a daft match with Danhausen or something. I know there have been injuries to guys like Punk, and Danielson seems to be touch and go, but even so. In no way does this feel like a supershow with less than a week to go.

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