MJF pricelessly rejects Hiroshi Tanahashi’s challenge for Forbidden Door

© Matty Breisch 6-14-2023

As AEW rapidly throws together a card for Forbidden Door 2, which is somehow less than two weeks away, fans of professional wrestling from all over the world – literally – are excited to see who top stars like MJF, Sanada, and Zack Sabre Jr. will throw down with at the cross-promotional event with New Japan Pro Wrestling live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Fortunately, many of those questions were either outright answered or at least heavily hinted at on the penultimate edition of Dynamite before the big show, with Sanada offering up an open challenge that was ultimately answered by “Jungleboy” Jack Perry, ZSJ attempting to challenge Orange Cassidy for the AEW International Championship that instead turned into a tag tea match also featuring Daniel Garcia and the Ring of Honor Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata, and MJF landing a challenge of his own after securing a controversial time-limit draw against Adam Cole in the opening contest from “The Ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling himself,” Hiroshi Tanahashi.

“It’s NJPW’s Master of the Century, Hiroshi Tanahashi,” Tanahashi said. “MJF, as long as you’re champion, that belt won’t shine like it should. Last year at Forbidden Door, I came this close to beating Moxley for the AEW Title. So this year at Forbidden Door, MJF, face me one on one.”

Whoa, really? For the second year in a row, Tanahashi is going for AEW gold, this time against an equally unflappable World Champion? While it’s a tad unorthodox to give such a big star two-straight losses for the same belt at the same event, the match would certainly be a fun one to watch, especially if MJF actually plays ball and gives his foe a chance to work through his signature offensive maneuvers for a Toronto fanbase who may have never seen him before in person.

… or instead, MJF could be MJF and make it incredibly difficult for absolutely no reason at all, just to seemingly amuse himself; I wonder which option he went for?

Stopping by Doc Sampson’s office to inform MJF about Tanahashi’s challenge, Renee Paquette received a short and not-so-sweet response from a man who claims to be the “Salt of the Earth.”

“Come again?” MJF asked.

When Paquette did, MJF laughed her off.

“No, no, no, no, sweetheart, I heard you,” MJF replied. “Yeah, I’m going to say no to that one, actually. Yeah, I don’t feel like giving a world title shot to some rando from a rinky-dink indie fed in Japan. And as far as Tony Khan ‘booking me’ for a matchup, it wouldn’t be the first time I no-showed somebody booked me for. So Tanahashi, sorry, no can do, bud.”

Wow. Just wow.

Though AEW did later announce that the match had been made official by Khan, one has to wonder if MJF is going to pull some you-know-what and make things difficult for AEW during one of the biggest shows of its calendar year, leading to obvious comparisons to when he walked out of a fan signing event before Double or Nothing 2022. Then again, should TK really be surprised? As, when asked about Forbidden Door 2 after Double or Nothing 2023, the champ had some less-than-kind things to say about New Japan as a promotion and the performers who work there.

Discussing his disenchantment with professional wrestling and the lack of viable challengers in AEW after retaining his belt at Double or Nothing, MJF was asked during the media scrum if he had any thoughts on Forbidden Door 2, and, unsurprisingly, he did; a lot of thoughts, actually.

“Do I have to wrestle at Forbidden Door? F**k that. It’s a f**king Indie fed,” MJF said via Fightful. “With all due respect, their greatest legend probably couldn’t lace my boots. I think I would make anybody on that roster look silly, and I don’t want to waste my time. I’m a very busy man. I think New Japan Pro Wrestling sucks. Except that Great-O-Khan guy, he pops me. I like him. Everybody else there is the drizzling s**ts. It reminds me of a local Indie fed.”

Alright, so excluding the part where he said wrestlers like Antonio Anoki couldn’t lace his boots, which is wild, MJF is either 1. playing the long game in terms of storytelling, which he has a tendency to do, or 2. just genuinely doesn’t like NJPW, which is also something he would openly say without giving it a second thought to just about anyone who was willing to listen; I’ll let you be the judge of which one this is a case of.

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