10 Times Wrestling Opened The Forbidden Door
3. ROH Vs. CZW
There was no real Forbidden Door of which to speak. There was no real heat between the two promotions. But the genius of this inspired storyline was that it all felt real.
Philosophically, the promotions were literally antithetical to one another. ROH's Code of Honor expressly forbade that which Combat Zone Wrestling embodied. What was a great choice in a bustling northeast indie scene made for an even more awesome dynamic, particularly since anti-garbage wrasslin' Jim Cornette was involved. Of course, he's a grifter with few if any real principles, but it really seems at times like he isn't, which infused the feud with the all-important credibility aspect.
It all started when Bryan Danielson, convinced that he was the best wrestler in the world, took the title he held literally and invited anybody to step up and take it. Chris Hero of Combat Zone Wrestling did step up, and nearly defeated Danielson in an a match so awesome, and so well-received, that it opened up an inter-promotional war as awesome in content as its premise.
A sprawling, bloody epic that dovetailed into itself, with mystery opponents, swerves, in-fighting and the most shocking of transgressions and alliances, it was f*cking great.
Ironically, the don't-know-how-to-work lot created a far better inter-promotional storyline than the great WWE ever did.