AEW's Bryan Danielson Names His Dream NJPW Opponents For Forbidden Door PPV

Could the American Dragon face off against one of THESE two at AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door?

by Andrew Pollard
Bryan Danielson Zack Sabre Jr. Kazuchika Okada
AEW/NJPW

With AEW and NJPW's Forbidden Door PPV on the horizon next month, Bryan Danielson has named two dream opponents for this hotly-anticipated cross-brand show.

Speaking to Sports Illustrated, the American Dragon listed both Kazuchika Okada and Zack Sabre Jr. as potential opponents for Forbidden Door.

"I would love to wrestle Okada, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking about Zack Sabre Jr. and wrestling him to see who is the best technical wrestler in the world. We have two very different styles of technical wrestling. We wrestled in 2008, and he was just a kid, but I was super impressed with him then. He's grown into this amazing wrestler, and I don't ever recall seeing anyone wrestle with his technique."

In addition to Okada and ZSJ, Danielson would then go onto mention Tomohiro Ihsii, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shingo Takagi, KENTA and Katsuyori Shibata as other talents he'd like to tangle with.

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"There are a ton of guys I'd like to wrestle. You mentioned Okada, and that's a match I really want. I want Ishii. Tanahashi and I wrestled in 2004, but we are totally different people now than we were then. That would be a lot of fun. Shingo and I wrestled in 2010, that would also be a lot of fun. I was hoping to get a match against KENTA in WWE, but it just never happened, and I would love to wrestle him. I'd also love to wrestle Shibata. I'm open to whoever Tony [Khan] and New Japan want me to go up against."

AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door will take place on 26 June from Chicago's United Center. No matches have been set for this supershow as of this writing, although the first Forbidden Door shenanigans took place on this past week's AEW Dynamite - with NJPW's Great-O-Khan and Jeff Cobb 'invading' AEW to attack Roppongi Vice and FTR.

Of course, before getting to Forbidden Door, AEW has the small matter of its huge Double or Nothing PPV later today.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.