Plans for the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view started to come together ten months ago after Kenny Omega helped mend the relationship between the two companies.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling‘s Rocky Romero recently sat down with Denise Salcedo to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked how the relationship was mended between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan, Romero revealed it had a lot to do with Kenny Omega.
“Since the New Japan/AEW relationship was kinda on ice, when the Elite guys had exited New Japan, and there was kind of a worry of how they were gonna go forward, and our president at the time didn’t really see the potential in maybe working with AEW,” Rocky Romero said. “We already had partners in ROH, CMLL, so maybe they were thinking, ‘let’s see how this AEW thing works out before jumping into it, so we don’t offend our partners.’ Obviously, those guys had left ROH too, so it was a very messy and complicated situation. Now jumping forward to I would say, a year and a half ago when Kenny (Omega) called me and had pitched the idea of kind of opening the doors a little bit.
“Obviously, Moxley and Jericho were still working with New Japan. But Kenny and the Bucks were a pivotal, important part of New Japan prior to AEW, and they’re EVPs, so they hold a lot of power. Not wanting to forget about them completely, we had to open the relationship, and Kenny kind of opened that and said, ‘hey, I have this idea of Kenta coming into AEW and working with Moxley since they already had a storyline,’ and that’s kinda where everything started. Going forward, I’ve always kinda been in between AEW and New Japan since that day, and I just continued on.”
When asked how the idea of Forbidden Door began in the first place, Romero says he believes it started with him sending a text message to Tony Khan about ten months ago.
“I think…now nobody get mad at me (laughs) if my memory doesn’t serve me well,” Rocky Romero said. “I think that I sent a text to Tony {Khan} and said, ‘I think it would be cool if somehow we can figure out how to do some kind of joint event,’ and then it just kinda started from there. Then he immediately had ideas about what we could do card-wise, honestly starting with Okada, Jay, Hangman. I am not sure if Cole was in the picture at that time or if he came later. But that was already kind of an idea, so it’s funny that it worked out that way, all the way to Forbidden Door. This conversation was like ten months ago, or so I would say. Kinda a ways away. I think that’s kinda how it started, and then it just snowballed… So I wanna say ten months ago, it started with that text.”
READ MORE: Tony Khan: AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door Wasn’t Possible Without Rocky Romero
What do you make of Rocky Romero’s comments? Are you surprised that Kenny Omega helped mend the relationship between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
