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It is the Zero Hour pre-show for Forbidden Door 2024, and it’s being held at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.
The hype portion is hosted by Renee Paquette, RJ City, Jeff Jarrett and Rocky Romero, and they have a desk for the broadcast after most pre-shows have been Renee and RJ on the entrance stage. They go through the matches and predict who they think will win.
We get a backstage promo from The Acclaimed.
Amanda Huber and Negative One show up to promote the Brody Lee shoe.
Excalibur, Nigel McGuinness, and Matt Menard are on commentary to start.
Serpentico vs Kyle Fletcher
They let us know that Fletcher lost on Ring of Honor and then at CMLL on Friday, and has lost his title. Fletcher dominates the match, cutting Serpentico off whenever he starts to gather any momentum. Fletcher hits a stalling brain buster on the top turnbuckle for the pin and the win.
Winner: Kyle Fletcher
We get a video to hype Jon Moxley vs Tetsuya Naito
House of Black (Malakai Black and Brody King) vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Kyle O'Reilly vs. Roderick Strong and Gabriel Kidd vs. Private Party (Zay and Quen)
This match has no build, which is a shame since House fo Black has been killing it on Collision and have made off of their matches seem important. We get Ishii and King early on, and this is one of the things AEW needs to do more of: Big Guys in a hoss fight. It doesn’t last long, since we’ve got a lot of people in this match who need to get into the ring.
Ishii gets a sequence where he takes everyone but the House fo Black out. Ishii gets a brain buster on Brody King, which is damn impressive. We then get the sequence where each person takes out the last person in the ring, and they go through it at a rapid pace. In the end, Brody King obliterates Zay for the pin and the win.
Winners: House of Black.
We get a video to hype Mercedes Mone vs Stephanie Vaquer.
Kris Statlander and Momo Watanabe w/Stokely Hathaway vs Willow Nightingale and Tam Nakano
Kris talks trash when she is in the ring to cement her heel status. The other part of the match is that Kris does what she can not to be in the ring when Willow is. Tam and Momo work well together since they are both in Shimmer and have had a lot of matches. Kris is abel to interfere when Stokely is distracting the ref.
“There should be some advantages to having Hathaway as he brings so many disadvantages.” - Nigel
There is a short sequence where Willow is in the ring, but Kris tags out as soon as she can. Nice idea to build for their match at Dynamite and since it’s on the pre-show, that is when you should do that sort of thing. Kris is tagged in again and they have limited interaction. The crowd gets louder for the match as it goes on, which means they are drawing people in as they find their seats.
Willow gets the pounce on Momo, clotheslines Kris out of the ring and Tam hits a suplex with a bridge for the pin and the win.
Winners: Willow Nightingale and Tam Nakano
We get a video to hype Swerve Strickland vs Will Ospreay
Owen Hart Cup Tournament Match: Mariah May w/Toni Storm and Luther vs. Saraya w/Harley Cameron
Saraya is on her back foot through the opening of the match, but Saraya slams May’s head into the ring post and takes over at that point. Storm is in a tracksuit and curlers as she has a match later tonight.
1950’s curlers. Never change character, Toni.
May is hugely over with the crowd and Saraya is great at getting heat through the match. The match itself was well worked, by the numbers one. May is able to get the surprise rollup on Saraya for the pin and the win.
Winner and moving on in the Owen Hart tournament: Mariah May
We then get a video for the match between Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa.
Checking on YouTube, they say that 58k are watching live.
Los Ingobernables de Japón (Yota Tsuji, Titán, and Hiromu Takahashi) vs. The Lucha Brothers (Penta El Zero Miedo, Rey Fénix, and Místico)
This is a high speed, high flying Lucha match. The crowd knows these performers and is hot before they lock up and chant along with everything that goes on. The Lucha Bros get a big series of tag team moves with Mistico joining in for the exclamation point. Takahashi has sections where he shows a lot of personality, and really does well when he gets a spotlight in the match.
Everyone gets a chance to shine, lots of big moves, lots of high flying and dives. When AEW started, most of their matches were like this, but now that they have settled into a different style, these matches stand out much more. I also think having a Lucha style match is a great way to get people hyped for the rest of the show. We get the first “This is awesome” chant, and the crowd pops for all of the big stuff.
Mistico gets the tap out on the La Mistica Arm Bar on Titan
Winners: The Lucha Brothers (Penta El Zero Miedo, Rey Fénix, and Místico)
They do a final match rundown as we go to the main show.
Coverage Continues on Next Page
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