Chris Jericho takes credit for being the man to open the Forbidden Door as his match against Hiroshi Tanahashi at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14 bridged a gap between AEW and NJPW.
AEW and NJPW will hold their first-ever joint show on June 16 with Forbidden Door and Jericho will teamed with Minoru Suzuki & Sammy Guevara against Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta, & Shota Umino at the event.
Before it was announced that Jericho and Suzuki would be teaming, Jericho was open to the possibility of facing him.
“I would have loved to have worked with [Minoru] Suzuki, I would have loved to have worked with [Will] Ospreay,” Jericho said in an interview with TSN. “There are still some guys I want to work with, but I’d also like to do those in Tokyo. I think Jericho versus Suzuki has a way different feel to it in Tokyo than Jericho versus Suzuki does in the States because Suzuki has worked a lot in the States and worked a lot of lower-level guys. In Japan, that’s not the case.”
Ospreay is also booked for Forbidden Door as he'll be taking on Orange Cassidy.
The show will be headlined by Jon Moxley against Hiroshi Tanahashi for the Interim AEW World Title. As he said on Dynamite, Jericho thought he could be facing Tanahashi once CM Punk announced his injury.
“To be honest with you, when Punk got hurt, I thought maybe I would get the call to work with Tanahashi,” Jericho said. “Obviously, Mox is a great choice, as well, but that to me is the status of what I should be doing in a New Japan situation. Don’t forget, we’ve got Blood and Guts three days later, so if I do something at Forbidden Door, it has to be something that leads to Blood and Guts. It has to be the next step in the story, so where does that fit in? Well, we have to use our heads and figure something out to make it fit in somewhere. And you can’t really have a pay-per-view without Chris Jericho on the show or Eddie Kingston on the show or Bryan Danielson on the show at this point in time, especially with Punk and other guys out. I’m sure I’ll be involved in some capacity, but it’s going to have to be more of something that fits together with what’s going on at Blood and Guts, which probably means not so much a singles match and more of a faction-based match with the Jericho Appreciation Society at the crux of it versus the BCC or whatever New Japan guys we decide could fit in there.”
The Jericho and Kingston feud will continue at Forbidden Door with the trios match currently scheduled to take place.
If you missed anything from AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
