AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling have had a strong working relationship for over five years at the time of writing, to the point that the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view has become a staple of the wrestling calendar and has been held in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. However, it didn’t start out that way.
In the beginning, there was no relationship between the two companies, as NJPW management was not happy with The Elite leaving in 2019, and former NJPW President Harold Mage did not see any positives in working with AEW, as the company was already working with CMLL and ROH. However, according to Dave Meltzer, “Wrestling Observer Radio“One person was key to making the relationship between AEW and NJPW a reality, and that person was John Moxley.
“John is the one in charge with New Japan and AEW during the pandemic,” Meltzer said. “John had the (IWGP) US title and he was an AEW guy…there was no relationship at all. it opened up the relationship. That’s when KENTA came to AEW and opened the door. They basically built a relationship after that.”
Moxley actually won the IWGP United States Championship In his debut match for NJPWa match that took place less than two weeks after his AEW debut. However, although he was initially stripped of the title due to travel complications that forced him to withdraw from his title defense in October 2019, he was not stripped of the title when he won it in January 2020 and was unable to return to Japan for the rest of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chris Jericho also competed in NJPW as the AEW World Champion, though that would be Jericho’s last official match for NJPW and has not returned to the company since.
Please credit Wrestling Observer Radio when using quotes from this article and give H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.