Match Card, Start Time, How to Watch, Full Preview

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025 comes to you live today on Sunday, August 24, from the O2 Arena in London, England, with the main card starting at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. The annual pay-per-view event brings together the best of AEW, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, CMLL, and STARDOM for a night of dream matches, championship showdowns, and international rivalries.

This year’s stacked Forbidden Door card features AEW World Champion “Hangman” Adam Page vs. MJF, AEW Women’s World Champion Toni Storm vs. ROH Women’s World Champion Athena, a massive Lights Out Steel Cage Match featuring Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jon Moxley, Darby Allin and more, plus Kazuchika Okada vs. Swerve Strickland for the AEW Unified Championship. Fans worldwide will witness one of the most anticipated wrestling shows of the year.

Here is the full match card for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025:

• AEW World Championship: “Hangman” Adam Page (c) vs. MJF (title can change hands via DQ or count-out)

• AEW Women’s World Championship: “Timeless” Toni Storm (c) vs. ROH Women’s World Champion Athena

• Lights Out Steel Cage Match: Will Ospreay, Darby Allin, Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) & Gabe Kidd

• AEW Unified Championship: “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Swerve Strickland

• Tag Team Match: Adam Copeland & Christian Cage vs. Kip Sabian & Killswitch

• TBS Championship 4-Way Match: Mercedes Moné (c) vs. Alex Windsor vs. Persephone vs. Bozilla

• AEW World Tag Team Championship 3-Way Match: The Hurt Syndicate (c) vs. FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) vs. Brodido (Brody King and ROH World Champion Bandido)

• IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Nigel McGuinness

• TNT Championship: “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi

• Zero Hour – AEW World Trios Championship Match: The Opps (Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata, Powerhouse Hobbs) vs. Bullet Club War Dogs (Clark Connors, Robbie X and Drilla Moloney)

• Zero Hour – All Star 8-Woman Tag Match: Triangle of Madness (Thekla, Skye Blue and Julia Hart) & Megan Bayne vs. Willow Nightingale, Kris Statlander, Harley Cameron & Queen Aminata

• Zero Hour – Trios Match: Michael Oku & JetSpeed (Kevin Knight and “Speedball” Mike Bailey) vs. Ricochet & GOA (Bishop Kaun and Toa Liona)

• Zero Hour – All Star 8-Man Tag Match: Don Callis Family (Josh Alexander and Hechicero) & CRU (Lio Rush and Action Andretti) vs. Paragon (Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong), Yuya Uemura & El Desperado

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025 takes place on Sunday, August 24, 2025, live from the O2 Arena in London, England. The main card begins at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT, while the Zero Hour pre-show kicks off at 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT with free matches streaming across AEW’s digital platforms.

• Date: Sunday, August 24, 2025

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT

• Zero Hour: 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT (streaming free worldwide)

• Location: The O2 Arena, London, England

• How to Watch: Fans in the United States and Canada can order AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025 live on pay-per-view through Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and major cable and satellite providers. International fans can also stream the event live on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video, with additional access through AEW’s global broadcast partners. For more information, click here.

(Title can change hands via disqualification or count-out)

Oh, what a twisted road it was to get to this AEW World Championship match at AEW Forbidden Door.

It’s no secret MJF has had his sights set on a second AEW Championship reign for quite some time and has exhausted many options to get his “Triple B” back, including recruiting some insurance policies.

A conversation between MJF and MVP got the ball rolling on The Hurt Syndicate adding another member, but getting the thumbs-up from Bobby Lashley proved to be more difficult. Offers of watches, a car, and even female companionship weren’t enough to get MJF membership, but his ability to hurt people eventually earned him unanimous approval from the group.

The whole thing seemed to be going well, as MJF was able to win the Casino Gauntlet at All In: Texas to earn a guaranteed AEW World Championship match. Unfortunately, MJF’s selfish mouth got him in trouble when he questioned the lack of support from the group. Over the next two weeks, he was informed by Shelton Benjamin and MVP that their business was over and MJF’s time alongside The Hurt Syndicate had ended.

Still, ever since “Hangman” Adam Page won the AEW World Championship for a second time at All In: Texas, MJF has made it clear he was coming for the title. In fact, MJF hasn’t really left Hangman alone since Page beat him at AEW Dynasty back in March.

MJF continued to harass Page for a title match, but Page wouldn’t budge despite MJF trying every way to push his buttons. In fact, Page originally beat MJF at his own game and got him to agree to execute his guaranteed title match contract if he wanted to face him so badly at Forbidden Door. An angry MJF wouldn’t let Page have the last laugh, as he brutally attacked Hangman in the parking lot at the end of that night.

And just days ago on Dynamite, Page was in the ring addressing his opponent for Forbidden Door when he was informed that MJF had a message.

We then saw MJF, Ricochet, and GOA surrounding a beaten and tied-up Mark Briscoe, who had come to Scotland looking to end MJF. With Briscoe already in serious danger, MJF poured gasoline all over him and threatened to light him on fire unless Page agreed to three stipulations for their match: the title can change hands via disqualification, the title can change hands via count out, and the match happens without MJF needing to execute his guaranteed contract. Page had no choice but to agree, and the complexion of the match changed significantly.

Has MJF pulled enough strings to end the reign of Hangman in his first PPV title defense? Can Page overcome the stipulations that have him at a severe disadvantage? Which AEW original will walk away with the richest prize in the game?

It’s not often the defending champion comes into a match with a shorter title reign than her opponent, but that will be the case on Sunday when “Timeless” Toni Storm defends her AEW Women’s Championship against the ROH Women’s World Champion, Athena.

With Athena closing in on 1,000 days as ROH Women’s World Champion, she holds the longest reign of any champion in AEW or ROH, and therefore she might have every right to call herself “The Forever Champion.”

She added to her unparalleled run by winning the Casino Gauntlet at All In: Texas to earn a guaranteed title match whenever she wanted for the next year. Instead of relying on the element of surprise, Athena called her shot weeks ago and made it clear she’d be taking the title from Storm at Forbidden Door.

It’s been a mix of mind games and standoffs between the two, although they’ve come to blows on multiple occasions both in and out of the ring. While Athena has the backing of Billie Starkz, Storm has found a willing ally in Alex Windsor.

This past week on Dynamite, Storm and Windsor teamed up against Athena and TBS Champion Mercedes Moné in a preview of both women’s championship matches at Forbidden Door. Athena picked up the win with an O-Face on the distracted Windsor to take the momentum into Sunday’s championship showdown.

Will Toni’s reign remain timeless, or can Athena become a double champion on top of both the AEW and ROH Women’s Division? If Toni doesn’t change her London luck, Athena might make forever a reality.

Ever since Darby Allin returned at All In: Texas to get revenge on Jon Moxley and the Death Riders for taking him out at the end of last year, he’s remained a painful thorn in their side.

Allin made his presence felt everywhere Moxley and company have gone for the last month, including keeping the Death Riders at bay during Moxley’s unsuccessful rematch with Hangman last month in Chicago. He would also stuff Wheeler Yuta in a bodybag with a message letting Moxley know he wanted him at Forbidden Door. 

Allin even went as far as subduing Moxley with an ether rag before nearly dumping him over a fire escape platform before being stopped by security, as he was hellbent on getting Moxley to answer his challenge.

Last week on Dynamite, Allin seemed to bite off a bit more than he could chew with the Death Riders, but Will Ospreay made a shocking return to make the save and issue the Lights Out Steel Cage match challenge. We would later find out that Ospreay acquired the services of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kenny Omega, and Kota Ibushi to join him and Allin against Moxley, Castagnoli, the Young Bucks, and Gabe Kidd. In fact, Moxley seemed shook when he found out Tanahashi would be on the opposite side, leading to him asking the Bucks to side with them once again.

The numbers game has always been in the Death Riders’ favor, and that was even more apparent this past Wednesday on Dynamite when Kidd showed up with Drilla Moloney, Clark Connors, and Robbie X, his War Dogs stablemates in NJPW. That brawl between the two sides ended when Allin launched himself off the mezzanine onto the Death Riders and their allies.

The Lights Out stipulation means this match isn’t sanctioned by AEW, leaving many dangerous scenarios on the table. And that also raises the question of Ospreay’s health. His surprise return came just weeks after he announced a serious neck injury and some needed time away, but the promise to be back for Forbidden Door was apparently too great for him to ignore.

This isn’t a match for the faint of heart, and even Ospreay admitted he may never be the same again, especially after he shared with the world the fact that he’ll need surgery. There’s no telling what these two teams will do with so much bad blood between them and lots of scores to settle.

Who will come out on top? And maybe more accurately, who will survive the Lights Out Steel Cage?

Swerve Strickland did the world a favor last month when he and Will Ospreay defeated the Young Bucks at All In: Texas to strip Matt and Nick Jackson of their EVP titles. The AEW Unified Champion Kazuchika Okada didn’t take kindly to Swerve messing with his friends, however, and quickly set his sights on Swerve to avenge his friends.

Swerve hasn’t backed down from Okada’s challenge and the chance at new championship hardware only made him more excited and the prospect of facing Okada. In their only meeting, Swerve beat Okada by disqualification last July, so nothing was settled then and so much is on the line this time around.

It’s been Okada’s constant verbal and cheap shots at Strickland that have caught Swerve’s attention, but that will all go away when they meet on Sunday for the AEW Unified Title and it comes down to who is the better man.

It’s taken more than a decade, but Adam Copeland and Christian Cage will finally come back together as a team – and what a strange journey it’s been to get there.

When Cage and Nick Wayne were unsuccessful in challenging for the AEW World Tag Team Titles at All In: Texas, Wayne finally turned on Cage, ending the Patriarchy. Before more damage could be done, Copeland made a surprise return to save Cage and told him to go find himself.

Cage eventually returned, and while he didn’t show much remorse for his actions in the Patriarchy, he put his sights directly on Wayne and Sabian for their disloyalty. Wayne and Sabian then attacked Cage, taking him out with a vertical Con-Chair-To.

Meanwhile, with Copeland back, he set his sights on the team that took him out, his former friends, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler of FTR. Before he had a chance, Stokely informed Copeland that there was a restraining order against him, preventing him from getting near FTR. Copeland instead went after Stoke and ended up embarrassing him in a one-on-one match before FTR broke their own restraining order to get involved. 

Stoke used powder to get disqualified and put Copeland at a disadvantage, and it looked like FTR would take out Cope once again until Cage returned with Spike to make the save. He was immediately followed by Wayne and Sabian, but with the help of Copeland, the two former friends and longtime tag partners stood tall and actually hugged – or, rather, Cope hugged Cage, anyway. Later that night, the match was made official for Forbidden Door, as Copeland and Cage would come back together for the first time in over a decade to face Wayne and Sabian.

On this past week’s Dynamite, Cage and Copeland spoke with Tony Schiavone about their history and current relationship. Both agreed they were helping each other out with their respective problems, but nothing past that was guaranteed. We then found out that Wayne broke his foot, taking him out of the tag match at Forbidden Door. However, Killswitch was shown coming back to full strength, and he hit the ring to take out both Cage and Copeland with chokeslams. He was named as Wayne’s injury replacement.

Do Copeland and Cage have enough history together to overcome all of their issues and recapture the magic that made them one of the greatest tag teams of all time? Is the late addition of the returning Killswitch enough of a wild card to swing the advantage in his team’s favor? No matter what happens, we’re all lucky to see Cope and Cage back together for at least one more match.

Mercedes Moné’s dominance has been almost entirely uninterrupted since debuting in AEW last April, as she has amassed an impressive reign as the TBS Champion to go along with her epic collection of championships. While a hard-fought loss to AEW Women’s Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm at All In: Texas clearly messed with Moné’s head, at least momentarily, she wasn’t down for long, as she now walks into Forbidden Door with nine championships!

One of those, the TBS Championship, will be on the line on Sunday. The 4-Way for Moné’s TBS Championship was announced with representatives from AEW, CMLL, and STARDOM filling out the other three spots. Windsor punched her ticket first by winning a 4-Way qualifier earlier this month on Dynamite. We would later learn that Persephone would represent CMLL and the massive Bozilla would carry the mantle for STARDOM.

Moné has been able to fend off challengers from all over the world and is clearly showing just how much gold she can win on an international level. This will be her 19th defense of the TBS Championship, as she walks into Forbidden Door approaching 460 days as champion. Will the Moné Train full of gold keep rolling through the Forbidden Door? She’ll have her hands full with three very different challengers.

It’s been almost impossible to find any success against Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin, as their reign as AEW World Tag Team Champions spans more than 200 days since winning the titles from Private Party back in January.

To determine the next challengers at Forbidden Door, eight teams competed in an AEW World Tag Team Title Eliminator Tournament, which began last month.

FTR made it to the finals with victories over JetSpeed and the Bang Bang Gang, as the winningest tag team in AEW marched toward a third reign with the AEW World Tag Team Titles.

On the other side of the bracket, the young alliance of ROH World Champion Bandido and Brody King found immediate success and lots of support with their unique offense and undeniable chemistry. They got by GOA in the opening round and followed that with the upset of the tournament by defeating former three-time AEW World Tag Team Champions, the Young Bucks, to reach the finals.

With the Forbidden Door championship match hanging in the balance, FTR and Brodido squared off in the finals this past Wednesday on Dynamite. After 30 grueling minutes, the time expired, and the match was ruled a draw. It was then announced that both teams would challenge Lashley and Benjamin at Forbidden Door in a 3-Way Match for the AEW World Tag Team Titles.

Defeating one team is hard enough, but beating two is far more difficult, especially when you consider the caliber of talent in the match. Will business be up for The Hurt Syndicate? Can FTR add to their already amazing resume? Or are Brodido just too good to be denied?

Dream match is a phrase that gets used quite often, yet for both Zack Sabre Jr. and Nigel McGuinness, this match for the IWGP Heavyweight Title at AEW Forbidden Door feels like a dream that would never come true.

McGuinness made a shocking and all-time great return to the ring after a 13-year absence last year in London at All In in the Casino Gauntlet. He’s since wrestled high-profile matches against Bryan Danielson and tagged with Daniel Garcia in a losing effort vs. FTR at Double or Nothing back in May.

Most of the time, McGuinness forms the AEW Collision broadcast team with Tony Schiavone, but last week he found himself in a 4-Way Technical Spectacle against Garcia, Hechicero, and Lee Moriarty with a shot at ZSJ’s IWGP Heavyweight Championship on the line. Following a dizzying array of submissions by all four men throughout the match, McGuinness finally claimed victory. He immediately asked Garcia to be in his corner for the match at Forbidden Door and despite the heartbreaking loss, Garcia agreed.

McGuinness has been very open about how much this match means to him, although he seemed a little taken aback when Sabre Jr. answered Max Caster’s first international challenge on Collision, as he got a front row seat for what could be his fate on Sunday.

Sabre Jr. is currently in his second reign as IWGP Heavyweight Champion, having won the title from Hirooki Goto back in June, avenging the loss he suffered to Goto for the title at The New Beginning in Osaka in February.

With victories against Max Caster, Orange Cassidy, and Kyle O’Reilly in his last three AEW singles matches, there’s no question a change in atmosphere means nothing to ZSJ. Can Sabre Jr. turn McGuinness’s dream into the ultimate nightmare, or will McGuinness live forever with a once-unthinkable title reign at this point in his career?

“The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher always reminds everyone to say his full name, and as of July 31, that includes TNT Champion.

Destiny was delayed at All In: Texas, when Fletcher’s one-on-one match with then TNT Champion Adam Cole turned into a 4-Way with Dustin Rhodes, Sammy Guevara, and Kyle Fletcher, as Cole wasn’t cleared to compete. On that day, Rhodes came away victorious with the TNT Title.

Fletcher wouldn’t be deterred and found himself with another chance at the title against Rhodes in a Chicago Street Fight on Collision last month. Both men emptied their tanks in what was one of the best matches of the year, although it turned ugly at the end, with Fletcher repeatedly stabbing Rhodes in the knee on his way to his first AEW title.

The uber-confident Fletcher has only grown more sure of himself as the future of AEW, so much so that he had Don Callis call for the best pound-for-pound wrestler that New Japan Pro-Wrestling had to offer.

That brought Hiromu Takahashi to AEW Dynamite last week in action against the Don Callis Family. Takahashi got the win for his team, and the match against Fletcher was made official with the TNT Title on the line at Forbidden Door.

The former five-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion brings a chaotic, fearless nature to the ring, and with two wins in multi-man tag matches against the Don Callis Family following another stellar showing on Collision Saturday night, he’s clearly ready for Fletcher.

Will the Timebomb explode in Fletcher’s first PPV defense of the TNT Title? Or will Fletcher add another win to a reign that he believes is just getting started?

Be there live for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, kicking off with the Zero Hour preshow in just minutes!