Opinion: Has AEW and NJPW’s Forbidden Door Lost Its Luster as Inter-Promotional Wrestling Goes Mainstream?

The Forbidden Door concept — the annual joint pay-per-view between AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling — was built on a genuinely novel premise: top stars from two major promotions sharing a ring on the same card. But heading into 2026, a compelling argument can be made that the “forbidden” part of that branding has become a bit of a misnomer.

Not long ago, inter-promotional crossovers in professional wrestling were legitimately rare events. Contractual exclusivity was the rule rather than the exception, and when a talent did cross promotional lines, it felt like a genuine moment. That era has passed. Cross-promotional matches now appear with regularity on a weekly basis across the landscape — a shift so dramatic it would have seemed unthinkable to fans even a decade ago. Even WWE, long the most insular of the major promotions, has been part of that broader trend.

The argument isn’t that Forbidden Door has become a bad event — it’s that the hook that originally made it feel special has been diluted by how normalized talent exchanges and inter-promotional bookings have become across the industry. When crossovers are everywhere, a show whose entire identity is built around the concept of breaking barriers needs something beyond novelty to stand out.

Whether AEW and NJPW can continue to evolve the Forbidden Door brand into something that justifies its marquee status — beyond the gimmick of two promotions working together — may be one of the more interesting creative questions heading into the next chapter of both companies’ partnership.