Rocky Romero explains the challenges and benefits of putting on a cross-promotional supercard event like Forbidden Door.
AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling are less than two weeks out from their second Forbidden Door pay-per-view. Ahead of the event, Rocky Romero spoke on Under The Ring about the challenges of structuring the card with two companies involved.
“Well, I think the quality part is kind of easy in the fact that I think both companies have such great talent that you can put any mixture of these guys or girls together and, you know, create something super special like we saw last year,” Romero said. “Outside of that, I think the hardest part is just two big companies like this who have a really regular schedule. It’s hard to try to schedule everybody in when we need to, right? So now that Double or Nothing is finished, AEW has to build to Forbidden Door. On the Japan side, we had just finished Dominion, and now we’re building to Forbidden Door. Now it’s just kind of getting everybody acclimated to having these three or four weeks that we need to build the pay-per-view.”
When it comes to how the matches are built up on television, Romero reminded fans that the emphasis is on filling the card with dream matches rather than long-term storylines.
“Also, there doesn’t also need to be a crazy build like you would normally build to a big show because Forbidden Door is kind of special in the fact that it’s dream matches or we’re trying to give you matches that you wouldn’t normally see on either program, right? Whether it’s in AEW or in New Japan.”
Looking forward, Romero believes there’s a place for more cross-promotional events in the industry.
“Yeah, obviously, Forbidden Door last year was a box office hit,” Romero said. “And this year going into it, the area’s already sold out in Toronto, and I’m sure the pay-per-view numbers are going to be just as good as last year, I would suspect so. Yeah, so I think there obviously is something there for the future if more companies could come together and do these type of events and bring together talent to wrestle each other.”
Romero explained that some companies get stale on the storytelling end, and setting up periodic supercards like Forbidden Door would allow companies to simply put on dream matches for fans before going their separate ways to focus on their own business again.
AEW and NJPW will present this year’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view on June 25 in Toronto. WrestleZone will have complete coverage as it airs.
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Under The Ring with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
