(I had this in the can, so might as well put it out before the shows people would rather hear me talk about.)
You’ll have to forgive the longer than usual wait for this thing. I had intended to have this up much earlier, but apparently, the draft that I wrote for this was misplaced and the post that had published came up empty. So I ended up re-writing a lot of the notes that I had before and that’s why you’re only getting this now.
So I skipped out on Double Or Nothing. The card just didn’t seem that interesting on paper. I almost skipped out on Forbidden Door and didn’t bother to catch the show live, but I eventually bought the replay for one specific reason and that is to help Tony Khan make back some of that money that he spent on Final Countdown. Call it a fleeting moment of charity.
On with the show, I guess…
Tony Khan secured rights to The Final Countdown for Bryan Danielson to come out to in his match with Okada. Then Bryan Danielson broke his arm during said match with Okada. So I guess Tony Khan saved himself some money because he won’t have to play it anymore until All In or something… oh waut.
In any event, I missed out on the Forbidden Door show when it aired, but learning about said song being licensed prompted me to give it a go. If nothing else, it’d be nice to write about a current wrestling PPV event, especially one that I found myself enjoying for the most part. Certainly a far deal better than having to endure shitty TNA PPVs from 20 years and while the WWF 2000 PPVs provided slightly more entertainment, I wouldn’t have minded a break from that as well for the sake of doing a write-up on the second collaborative PPV between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
However, when it came time to actually write something about this show, my mind was a blank. The most I could come up with was a quick blurb that would end up being an answer to an email that I used for the mailbag edition of the DTM-Cast. That blurb, for those who would rather not dive into an audio program of sorts, is as follows:
“I actually bought the replay and yeah, that was a great show. Danielson/Okada was a tremendous match considering Danielson fractured his arm and still kept going… the fact that they actually snagged the rights to Final Countdown made it special, because that song is notoriously expensive to get the rights to, so that made it somewhat special. Omega/Ospray was a spectacle that I’m sure Meltzer’s going to give a billion stars because that’s the sort of hardon that he has for that pairing. Jungle Boy turning into a Jungle Man, blinding siding Hook which got a huge negative reaction and ol’ Jack Perry just drank it in, baby… so that’s something to look forward to.”
So I set it aside and continued with the usual stuff… and then I watched the show again recently and once again, I had the same problem as before; I liked the show, but not enough to actually write anything substantial… which is funny because there were plenty of PPV musings – especially in regards to PPVs from twenty to thirty years ago – where I would say almost nothing beyond a couple lines for each match. Because these musings are not recaps or reviews; I just talk about stuff that I’ve seen and add whatever comes to mind.
A couple days ago, I gave the show yet another watch to refresh my memory… and turns out I’ve got quite a bit to say about this show… such as the sound mixing being utterly atrocious. The crowd in particular seemed somewhat muted and not quite as loud as they should be. Well, it’s either a bad mix or a bad crowd because this took place in Toronto.
So when all was said and done, this is what I thought of the show… in slightly greater detail than I had before, but not as much as I would’ve liked.
Continue reading “AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door 2023”
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