Last night, All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling joined forces to present their latest supercard, Forbidden Door 2. The show’s main event saw Bryan Danielson pick up a hard-fought victory over Kazuchika Okada, but the entire show was filled with stars and big matches. Before that main event, Will Ospreay defeated Kenny Omega, The Elite successfully fended off Blackpool Combat Club, and CM Punk advanced in the Owen Hart Cup Tournament with a win over Satoshi Kojima.
This historic show was also the first time that The Elite and CM Punk were in the same place at the same time since their backstage altercation at AEW All Out last year. Since that time, both sides have reportedly been unable to bury the hatchet, with Punk’s camp being told not to make contact for legal reasons. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez reported that while all parties involved were at The Scotiabank Arena, they were “as far apart as they could possibly situate them.”
It was also noted that at no time did Punk and The Elite’s camp make contact, and no words were exchanged between the two sides. Overall, it does not seem they were ever in each other’s proximity; they came out for their matches and immediately returned to their respective locker rooms. Contrary to speculation about how the situation would be handled once they all had to share a venue, no one was relegated to being on their bus in the parking lot; everyone was inside the building.
Unlike Punk, FTR, who are both good friends with The Second City Savior, does not seem to have the same issues with The Young Bucks. Dave Meltzer stated that the AEW World Tag Team Champions went out of their way to keep their relationship with The Bucks positive. Going so far as to say that if the two teams wanted to do a program for the tag titles, there would not be any issues.