Rocky Romero: Working With Tony Khan Has Been Incredible, ‘Forbidden Door’ Can Stay Fresh

After the first AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event, Rocky Romero believes that the two companies can successfully collaborate again.

Rocky Romero says he enjoys working with Tony Khan, and he has been impressed by the AEW president’s passion. After the first AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event, Romero believes that the two companies can successfully collaborate again in the future.

Romero has often been called the liaison between AEW and NJPW, and he was a vital player in the process of making the Forbidden Door pay-per-view a reality. He’s part of the office with NJPW, but he has also formed a good relationship with Khan through his work for the promotion and the previous cooperation between the two companies.

Speaking to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Romero shared his thoughts on working with Khan and noted that he’s the point of contact between AEW and NJPW. He went on to highlight how Khan’s passion is “electric”, and he noted that the AEW president understands how his company differs from NJPW.

“Tony and I will talk and then I’ll go back to New Japan or New Japan will say, ‘What about this person? Can we send this person over there?’ I’m just the intermediary between both parties. Working tightly with Tony and the booking side of New Japan to get them on the same page. Working with Tony has been incredible. It’s crazy to see the guy who has so much going on, he has so many multiple businesses, but you can see his heart and passion in 100% AEW and it’s really awesome to have somebody so fired up about what you’re doing. It’s electric and makes you feel good about what we’re doing. AEW is doing a good job in general. We’re around the same age so we get all the references and get along well. That’s been important. He’s been understanding to the cultural differences between New Japan and AEW. New Japan is a touring company, AEW is a television company, primarily. Having the certain way booking tropes work, he’s been easy to work with. He’s understanding because he’s knowledgeable about the product and about wrestling. He was a fan of New Japan first, so you don’t have to explain it much, he gets it,” he said.

Given the success of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, many fans are already looking forward to the next one. During a media call before the show, Khan stated that the sequel has already been discussed. However, some critics have wondered whether the concept will get stale if the two companies keep doing crossover shows. With this in mind, Romero described how there are still plenty of matches on the table, and the possibility of doing a show in Japan could change the dynamic, among other factors.

“I think it can stay pretty fresh,” he said about potentially doing another crossover event. “There are still a lot of matchups we can do, sending some talent to AEW and AEW sending some talent to New Japan. We have the Japan fanbase, which is a completely different fanbase and certain talent will do well in japan over other talents, which is cool. It should all build to once a year, this Forbidden Door, and if we do see Forbidden Door 2, we learned a lot with how to work with each other. Tony has been awesome to work with. He’s a smart guy and really has his finger on the pulse when it comes to wrestling and wrestling in the US. Going into the next one, when and if we do, the build will be better. Two different companies doing two different schedules is very difficult to get certain talents over there at the right time. hopefully, we’ll have more AEW talent come to New Japan to build storylines as well for Forbidden Door, that’s what I hope will be the big one for next year. I want the Japanese fans to have a chance to get into the AEW product, that’s important.”

As of this writing, a second AEW x NJPW Forbidden door has not been confirmed. In an interview after the pay-per-view, Khan discussed potentially doing a joint show with NJPW in Japan. You can check out his comments here.

Fans can check out the full interview with Romero in the video above.