Huge Name Makes A Surprise Appearance On AEW Collision

As AEW continued its build to Double or Nothing later today, last night's Collision saw a surprise appearance from the legendary Hiroshi Tanahashi.

The Ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling - and these days the President of NJPW - was revealed as the mystery teammate of Claudio Castagnoli and Daniel Garcia as they took on Lance Archer and the Righteous.

While it was teased that Claudio and Red Death would face their opponents in a two-on-three handicap match, Castagnoli took a moment to pause and usher out Tana as the third member of their team. As expected, the babyfaces picked up the win here, with Tanahashi hitting the High Fly Flow on Vincent to pick up the 1-2-3.

Interestingly, it was heavily pushed on commentary that the Forbidden Door had opened early, with that annual crossover PPV to take place on 30 June. As well as the usual AEW and NJPW involvement, this year's Forbidden Door has been rumoured to feature talent from CMLL and Stardom as well.

As for Hiroshi Tanahashi, he last competed in an AEW ring back at last year's Forbidden Door, where he lost to then-AEW World Champion MJF. The 47-year-old has three other AEW outings under his belt, teaming with Jon Moxley to defeat Chris Jericho and Lance Archer on a June 2022 Dynamite, losing to Mox at Forbidden Door later that month, and scoring a win over Swerve Strickland on an episode of Collision last June prior to that MJF loss.