Why AEW Were Forced To Hold Off On Forbidden Door Announcement

The official announcement for AEW Forbidden Door had to wait for a unique reason.

For the fourth year in a row, AEW and NJPW will have a Forbidden Door PPV. It’s a show that AEW runs along with NJPW featuring matchups between wrestlers in the two companies. Past events have featured numerous dream match that excited wrestling fans around the world.

It was announced this week that AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door will take place at the The O2 arena in London, England on Sunday, August 24. The company will also debut in Scotland with a taping of Dynamite and Collision on August 20 at the Ovo Hydro in Glasgow.

Forbidden Door going to England in August was expected since last year when it was announed that All In would be in Texas on July 12th rather than in England like the last two years.

AEW Had To Wait After WWE Shows To Announce Forbidden Door

Dave Meltzer has reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that AEW had to wait until after WWE ran events as The O2 to make the announcement official.

As had been expected, AEW’s Forbidden Door show will take place at the O2 Arena in London on 8/24. They had announced a return for that show last August but not the arena. It was figured to be the O2 but the contract they signed with the arena, because of a contract the arena had already signed with WWE for the TV tapings in that building on 3/28 and 3/31 in the building.

The contract specified that no other wrestling promotion could announce a date in the building until 15 days after the WWE show takes place, so AEW was not allowed to announce the building until this week. They will be going early as they will be taping television on 8/20 in Glasgow at the Hydro, taping both Dynamite and Collision that night.

During AEW Dynamite in Boston, Mercedes Mone and Will Ospreay won big matches to punch their tickets into the finals of the Women’s and Men’s Owen Hart Cup tournaments.

The winners of the Owen Hart Cup tournaments will receive Women’s and Men’s AEW World Title match at All In Texas on July 12th. Forbidden Door will follow All In Texas and it’s possible that Ospreay could return to his home country of England at Forbidden as the AEW World Champion if he’s able to win the tournament and the title.