Original Plan For Jon Moxley At Forbidden Door Was Dramatically Different

Jon Moxley will take on Hiroshi Tanahashi at Sunday’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view for the interim AEW World Championship. The road to that match has taken a lot of twists and turns. The original plan was for CM Punk to defend the title against Tanahashi, but an injury nixed that idea.

With Punk on the shelf and facing surgery, a new plan had to be enacted. Tony Khan came up with the interim championship, which included a series of qualifying matches with the title being fought for at the pay-per-view. That drastically changed the way Moxley was set to be booked at the event.

In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer revealed that Jon Moxley was originally scheduled to work a tag team match at Forbidden Door. Moxley was supposed to team with his NJPW protégé, Shota Umino and Eddie Kingston against Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, and Minoru Suzuki. Instead, Wheeler Yuta was plugged into the bout when Mox was called upon to save the main event.

“Shota Umino & Wheeler Yuta & Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki. It continues the Jericho vs. Kingston program and should build for Blood & Guts next week. The original plan was for Jon Moxley to be in this match which is why Umino was there, as Moxley’s protégé, but again, aside from hardcore New Japan fans, nobody knows this. As a match this looks good, but we are in the environment where AEW delivers great matches on television weekly.”

Advertising

Advertising

A lot of plans had to be changed to make the Forbidden Door card work. Injuries to CM Punk and Bryan Danielson caused two huge matches to be dropped. Andrade El Idolo is unable to work the show because of international wrestling politics involving CMLL, AAA, and NJPW. Kazuchika Okada’s status wasn’t even confirmed until this week’s Dynamite.

Forbidden Door’s lineup could have looked much different. Tony Khan has hit roadblock after roadblock in the run-up to the show. Even AEW’s top stars have had to be shuffled around to put together an event that fans have been looking forward to for a long time.

What do you think of this story? Let us know in the comments!