Dax Harwood’s AEW x NJPW ‘Forbidden Door’ Injury Was A Work

FTR came into last night’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view looking to add the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships to their growing trophy case. Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler were successful in that endeavor, defeating Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan and Roppongi Vince to capture the titles. The story of the match played off the huge string of recent injuries to AEW talent.

Harwood left the match early selling an injured shoulder. Because of the amount of AEW wrestlers who are currently injured, many fans’ first reaction was to hold their breath. Playing off the psychology that AEW talents are dropping like flies worked very well in the match.

On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer lauded AEW for how the match played out. He noted that even he had to think twice before realizing the injury was part of the show. Dax Harwood’s comeback led to a great babyface finish for the new IWGP champs.

“It was actually pretty brilliant to do an injury angle, you know, with the shoulder, because there are so many injuries, so people could buy it very easily. ‘Oh, God, another injury,’ right? Especially because later in the show there was [another] real injury. So, I thought that doing that was really, really smart, plus I thought they did it real well, in the sense that when I saw it, I thought, ‘Oh, God, not another injury,’ and then there were a few little signs where it was like, ‘OK, it’s probably a work.’

Advertising

Advertising

Now, as the match went on when Cash kept going into the corner and tagging with nobody to tag, then it’s like, ‘OK, this is a storyline, he’s coming back out,’ and he actually came out a little earlier than I expected but I thought, you know, it was a nice story for the match and thought the match itself… I expected a really good match and I thought it ended up being a great match.”

FTR now holds three major tag team championships. The Young Bucks and their AEW World Tag Team Championships are next in their chase to collect all the gold. Time will tell if Dax and Cash can add yet another prestigious title to their impressive list.

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

Transcription by Ringside News