On Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite, it was announced that AEW World Championship MJF would defend his title against Hiroshi Tanahashi at AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door 2 later this month in Chicago.
Some fans have criticized the match booking considering MJF’s positioning as the top star in AEW. Also, last year’s Forbidden Door was headlined by Jon Moxley beating Tanahashi for the interim AEW World Heavyweight Title.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer brought up how he is under the impression that within NJPW, Tanahashi is no longer seen as a top guy who well protected and not booked to lose to wrestlers from other promotions like he had been years before. Meltzer speculated Tanahashi was chosen as MJF’s opponent because he’s someone with a name that can be beaten.
“I think two years ago, that would’ve been great. But the last Forbidden Door title match was [Jon] Moxley and Tanahashi, and Tanahashi lost. I know politically, Tanahashi is now a guy… for years and years and years and years, Tanahashi, [Kazuchika] Okada, [Tetsuya] Naito, and who was the fourth guy…Kota Ibushi or someone, it actually might have been Kenny Omega now that I think about it, but there are four guys that New Japan was like, ‘If we come to the United States,’ or whatever, like when they were working with Ring of Honor, it’s like, ‘You can’t beat these guys. You can do whatever you want.’ It was [Shinsuke] Nakamura who was the fourth guy at the time. And at other points, AJ [Styles] was as well. The point is that you couldn’t. And then Tanahashi is no longer on that list, so he’s a star who can lose, and that’s why he wrestled Moxley on the last Forbidden Door show,” Meltzer stated.
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