AEW President Tony Khan admitted that he’s thwarted plans for a major Forbidden Door match to happen previously in New Japan!
Though Hiroshi Tanahashi was originally slated to face CM Punk at Forbidden Door, plans changed in the wake of Punk announcing that he had suffered an injury and would be unable to compete for some time.
As such, after a series of matches to determine the final contenders, Jon Moxley is now set to face Tanahashi at Forbidden Door, and the winner will be crowned the Interim AEW World Champion.
AEW President Tony Khan spoke to Busted Open Radio about the blockbuster match, admitting that New Japan has wanted to put it on for a long time, but he wouldn’t allow it to happen without AEW involvement.
“That’s a match that has been talked about in New Japan for a long time, well over a year. There’s some backstory as to why it never happened. I would never allow it to happen.
“I’ll make an old WWF reference, Armageddon, Vince (McMahon) came out with the truck to stop the six-way cage match [Hell in a Cell], that’s like me with this match. They tried to do it so many times, Moxley vs. Tanahashi, and I’ve always been there to stop it from happening because it’s such a huge match and we had to be involved if it was going to happen.
“Lo and behold, at a time when everything changed, CM Punk won the world title, he gets injured, we have to set up a huge match to crown an Interim World Champion. Going back to the relationship between AEW and New Japan, it’s been building towards this and it’s fate. Moxley vs. Tanahashi was a match that was supposed to happen many times and it never happened.
“Now, it’s the right time and right place. It could have happened a lot of times and heaven knows I stepped in and tried to stop it and now it’s finally happening at the perfect time for AEW and New Japan and all the fans.”
h/t Fightful