{"id":410892,"date":"2026-07-24T16:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T16:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410892\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T16:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T16:14:10","slug":"at-san-joses-forbidden-door-international-aew-stars-knocked-out-xenophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410892\/","title":{"rendered":"At San Jose’s ‘Forbidden Door,’ international AEW stars knocked out xenophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was impossible not to harken back to All Elite Wrestling<\/a>\u2018s last major Bay Area event while attending the league\u2019s fifth annual pay-per-view \u201cForbidden Door\u201d at San Jose\u2019s SAP Center on June 28. That was \u201cRevolution,\u201d which hit San Francisco\u2019s Chase Center in early 2023. One half of that long-ago show\u2019s main match, Bryan Danielson, was to retire the following year, ending a legendary career that first got going at Hayward\u2019s indie professional wrestling promotion and training school, All Pro Wrestling. And that night\u2019s defending world champion was Maxwell Jacob Friedman, better known to fans as MJF. He lost the title on the evening in 2023. He was back to regain it at \u201cForbidden Door.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Maxwell Jacob \u201cMJF\u201d Friedman at AEW \u2018Forbidden Door\u2019 in San Jose, June 28. Photo by Danny Acosta<\/p>\n

Indeed, MJF was one of eight \u201cRevolution\u201d 2023 stars returning to the Bay Area. MJF\u2019s character might be uncharitably described as a loathsome bad guy enamored with his own greed and ego, or (charitably) as a contender with complex motivations. Whatever your perception of his ring persona, he\u2019s a lynchpin star on a roster that is rightfully called one of the best talent collections in pro wrestling history.<\/p>\n

Of course, any such superlative, not to mention AEW\u2019s tagline \u201cwhere the best wrestle,\u201d stokes the ire of the WWE, whose corporate-conditioned \u201csports entertainers\u201d exist in an ad-first ecosystem of Saudi Arabian sportswashing, powered by an AI-slop laden business model that purports to be the one true way to present live and televised events centered around the squared circle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The WWE\u2019s market dominance (or monopoly) of the pro wrestling landscape has been in effect since the league\u2019s primary rival, Ted Turner\u2019s World Championship Wrestling, collapsed in 2001. It went unchallenged until AEW was launched in 2019. A bad-faith online cottage industry emerged to demean AEW, which insists that AEW is nothing but a house of cards. That narrative persists because toxic fandom thrives in the world of WWE, where wrestlers are fired en masse every year to enrich shareholders at its parent company TKO\u2014which let\u2019s not forget, also owns UFC, the star player in the Trump administration\u2019s idiocracy<\/a>, right there on the White House lawn.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s get back to \u201cForbidden Door.\u201d The event was carried out in collaboration with Mexico\u2019s Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), the oldest wrestling promotion company; New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), established in 1972; and the Japanese all-women\u2019s brand Stardom. It delivered fans an experience that honored wrestling\u2019s traditions, its modern competitive landscape, and a global spirit of cooperation rarely seen at this scale. After all, if you\u2019re going to call your league \u201cwhere the best wrestle,\u201d you better be searching the world for top talent. <\/p>\n

AEW storytelling might at times miss the mark due to natural pitfalls that arise from producing 52 weeks of TV per year, but its pay-per-view events have become a way to overcome the limitations of the form, and to present pro wrestling\u2019s simple morality play as a more nuanced story, with a more physically robust package. \u201cForbidden Door\u201d produced a standout night of action. The series\u2019 detractors deride it as an experiment with no clear purpose, underdelivering on its cross-promotional \u201cdream\u201d matches, yet it continues to entrench itself in pro wrestling lore with high-octane, memorable bouts that regularly refine and redefine the league\u2019s brand. <\/p>\n

It is worth noting, what with America being a failing state and all, that some of the event\u2019s performers fell victim to nightmare work visa situations. Not all the talents that should have been in San Jose were present, which makes you think about how the event could have been even stronger in a less xenophobic national atmosphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"AEW \u2018Forbidden Door\u2019 in San Jose, June 28. Photo by Danny Acosta<\/p>\n

WCW occasionally featured NJPW stars, and contracted Mexican luchadores in the 1990s on TBS and TNT. But historically, non-English speaking wrestlers from pillar countries like Mexico and Japan have largely been presented as marginalized characters in the United States, even when they had considerable talent. So perhaps where AEW most truly sets itself apart is by presenting international talent with consistency and cultural competency, valuing them at every level of the card. Mexican and Japanese wrestlers are given free rein to be their fully capable, embodied, compelling, complex and diverse selves\u2014instead of filler. AEW fans have the opportunity to connect with these more authentic iterations, no matter the performer\u2019s style, background, or language.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AEW\u2019s high-caliber events, like the recent five-hour sprint in San Jose, don\u2019t insult fan intelligence, but rather encourages them to see the wrestling world that lies beyond the United States. The approach positions the league as inclusive, rather than a restrictive and trampling force. While WWE balks at everything outside its own league, AEW affirms and adds to the legacies of Mexican lucha libre and Japanese strong style.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The league is able to welcome talent from around the world thanks in part to owner Tony Khan\u2019s seemingly infinite pockets (Khan also owns the NFL\u2019s Jackson Jaguars and the Premier League\u2019s Fulham F.C.). AEW has hired a steady and strategic stream of top global stars, including headliners at this year\u2019s \u201cForbidden Door\u201d like England\u2019s Will Ospreay\u2014a game-changing \u201cAerial Assassin\u201d that cut his teeth in NJPW and would be at home in British sports and gangland movies alike\u2014who was matched up against \u201cSwerve\u201d Strickland, a Black American from Washington who served in the US Army (and was barely utilized during his former WWE stint) for the Owen Hart Foundation Men\u2019s Tournament final. The two captivated fans with a match that surpassed their former fights, and Ospreay prevailed after 30-plus minutes of top-notch attrition.<\/p>\n

Ospreay\u2019s win came after finishing as runner-up in last year\u2019s tournament, and just after recovering from neck surgery. Now, he\u2019ll go on to headline the biggest stadium in his home country\u2014London\u2019s Wembley, where he\u2019ll compete in the world championship on August 30. Earlier in the night, Mercedes Mon\u00e9, a women\u2019s wrestling pioneer and former Wrestlemania headliner who is currently at her peak, became the first two-time Owen Hart Cup winner, beating sentimental upstart Maya World.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Truth be told, Ospreay, Mon\u00e9, Strickland, and MJF are a few of the names on AEW\u2019s roster who vie for the title of world\u2019s best wrestler. As such, a major wow factor threaded through \u201cForbidden Door.\u201d Khan\u2019s bottomless war chest can only account for part of that wealth\u2014and it points to the high value of AEW\u2019s openness to spotlighting talent <\/a>from around the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"Mercedes Mon\u00e9 at AEW \u2018Forbidden Door\u2019 in San Jose, June 28. Photo by Danny Acosta<\/p>\n

The main card of \u201cForbidden Door\u201d opened with a tag team party starter featuring M\u00edstico, the luchador who has defined Mexico\u2019s wrestling millennium. Even in this, his late career renaissance, M\u00edstico is capable of selling out CDMX\u2019s Arena Mexico, and is the biggest attraction in the world by a tangible margin. CMLL surpassed its record sellouts from last year in just six months of 2026, thanks to the man\u2019s status as a living legend. San Jose\u2019s fervent Mexican fanbase was thrilled by M\u00edstico and other elite luchadors throughout \u201cForbidden Door.\u201d <\/p>\n

NJPW athletes have made repeated trips to the San Jose Civic Center in the last decade, and the Japanese performers leaving it all in the ring drew huge reactions throughout the night. Importantly, Khan has worked out dual contracts for cornerstone wrestlers, meaning M\u00edstico can maintain his obligations in Mexico for CMLL, while becoming an AEW regular. The league has similar deals with Japanese stars who want to keep a foot in NJPW, a flexibility that demonstrates reverence for the wrestlers\u2019 best interests, and that serves promotional partners and international fans well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Kenny Omega versus Zack Sabre Jr. at AEW \u2018Forbidden Door\u2019 in San Jose, June 28. Photo by Danny Acosta<\/p>\n

The second main card match was between Kenny Omega, the Canadian renowned for his world championship runs in NJPW, and whose success endowed AEW with enough credibility and compelling talents for the league to find triumph in its early years. He faced off with AEW\u2019s consensus top technical grappler, England\u2019s Zack Sabre Jr.\u2014the first non-Japanese wrestler to defend his world title at the Tokyo Dome\u2019s biggest show of the year. The third bout on the main card featured Bandido, a luchador who AEW let loose last year in both the United States and in Mexico, resulting in the man known as The Most Wanted becoming a 2025 Wrestler of the Year candidate and arguably, Mexico\u2019s prime luchador. His opponent was Jon Moxley, the US brawler who has been AEW\u2019s ace, a multi-time world champion who has set the standard when it comes to being able to headline anywhere in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the women\u2019s side, AEW world champion Thekla from Austria successfully defended her title against Stardom standout Starlight Kid, a masked Japanese wrestler. Upon Thekla\u2019s arrival to AEW, she was immediately treated like the impact player she is. <\/p>\n

Rounding out the card were Canadian duo Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, who were both winding down three decades at the top of the industry by defending their AEW world tag team championship title against fourth-generation wrestler David Finlay, born in Germany to parents from the north of Ireland, and his US stablemate Clark Connors. (Switchblade Jay White, a former NJPW world champion from New Zealand, surprised fans by returning to prevent Finlay from cheating Copeland and Cage.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Kazuchika Okada versus Konosuke Takeshita at AEW \u2018Forbidden Door\u2019 in San Jose, June 28. Photo by Danny Acosta<\/p>\n

The cage match was another crowd-pleasing face-off between\u2014again\u2014two men who could each be be argued as the best wrestler on earth; Japan\u2019s Kazuchika Okada and Okada\u2019s heir apparent and rival, Konosuke Takeshita. The most recent AEW world champion, Darby Allin, was in the cage too, opposite two wrestlers considered AEW\u2019s future: Black American Kevin Knight of Washington, and Australia\u2019s Kyle Fletcher. Lastly, there was Andrade \u201cEl Idolo\u201d\u2014Mexican lucha libre royalty, a proven world-caliber main-eventer, who is once again firing on all cylinders with US audiences.<\/p>\n

Between September 2018\u2019s independent prologue event to AEW\u2019s official launch titled \u201cAll In,\u201d which AEW has brought back as its yearly flagship event, and May 2019\u2019s league-first pay-per-view event, coming a month after Okada headlined the Garden, the professional wrestling landscape underwent seismic shifts. These changes were motivated by the assertion that there had to be life outside of WWE. AEW has, in Ospreay\u2019s words, \u201crestored the feeling\u201d for pro wrestling fans, who can trust that the league will provide its grapplers with fair treatment\u2014that recognizes they\u2019re not disposable bodies, but performers deserving of dignity, and who have paid a real price to entertain fans (as proof, look to former NJPW world champion and current NJPW President Hiroshi Tanahashi\u2019s appearance during this year\u2019s \u201cForbidden Door.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those values can easily be seen in AEW\u2019s decision to name their tournament for Owen Hart, a high-flying grappling pioneer from a famous family who lost his life due to the WWE\u2019s negligence<\/a> in 1999. When his widow Martha finally got the rights to Owen\u2019s name and likeness, AEW launched the tournament, which benefits The Owen Hart Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That sense of equality makes AEW a league in which top players can find themselves becoming the world champion, a feature that is somewhat akin to the NBA having had eight different champs in the last eight years. MJF lost to Omega less than two weeks after \u201cForbidden Door,\u201d on AEW\u2019s weekly TV show \u201cDynamite\u201d during a themed edition dubbed \u201cBeach Break.\u201d That means Omega will be the defending AEW world champion at Wembley Stadium, and fighting title challenger, 2026 Owen Hart Tournament winner, and\u00a0hometown hero Ospreay. The London event will feature eight different wrestlers, demonstrating the roster\u2019s depth. That title made it evident that the fights in San Jose ramped up the drama on the road to London, another memorable benchmark for AEW towards becoming the kind of promotion company that can fill stadiums.<\/p>\n

To put it in terms the Bay Area and Silicon Valley might understand, the \u201cForbidden Door\u201d refers to a once-closed ecosystem transformed into something like an open source network. Its latest installment proved that AEW cornerstone events are thriving. And the disruptor league is deserving; its value proposition informs an increasingly impressive portfolio, one that is forward-thinking and unapologetically authentic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was impossible not to harken back to All Elite Wrestling\u2018s last major Bay Area event while attending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-410892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}