AEW just wrapped up their joint event with NJPW over the weekend titled Forbidden Door. The concept of the show was to utilize talent from both AEW and NJPW in unique matches you wouldn’t necessarily see otherwise. For the women, this wasn’t capitalized on and the one match that we received was Thunder Rosa defending her AEW Women’s World Title against Toni Storm. Two women who are already in AEW.
NJPW does not feature women’s wrestling, however, Bushiroad is the parent company for NJPW, which also owns Stardom. This led to many fans speculating if the Stardom talent would be utilized. Unfortunately for fans, the Stardom talent was not featured but that wasn’t due to lack of trying.
While speaking on the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door Post Show Media Scrum, Tony Khan said the interest was there, it just wasn’t feasible.
“I was interested in using Stardom, obviously they have a close relationship with New Japan, and all the wrestlers from Stardom were pretty much booked and they didn’t have visas. It was a big obstacle. There is definitely potential there.
Certainly, Toni is one of the hottest and rising stars in AEW since she arrived in AEW. I thought it made great sense because she’s been a champion in Japan, has great experience at Stardom, and is someone who has been on our TV. It was a great match we could build to. t was not a blood rivalry. I was forged in mutual respect and fought it with honor. It was a great wrestling match and it was cool.
I thought Toni was the perfect choice given who was on our TV, who was pushed, and knowing that, while it would have been another challenge, in addition to many other challenges, to take people from Stardom and get them over on our TV, it would have been possible to do it, absolutely, but availability is the greatest ability of all in this business and most businesses. In this case, there was no availability. Toni, for many reasons, was a great choice and they had a great match,” said Khan. (Fightful)
Over the weekend, Stardom had a first in the company’s history as the talent stepped inside a steel cage. At the Fight in the Top event, two steel cage matches took place for the first time as Tam Nakano defeated Natsupoi in 25:05 while Stars defeated Queen’s Quest in a six-woman tag team match inside the structure. That match lasted 24:36.
