AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2026 Post-Show Media Scrum: Mercedes Mone on Her Match with Maya World, Will Ospreay on His Men’s Owen Hart Cup Victory & Getting To Main Event All In, WWE Running Two Shows The Same Day As All In 2026, “Death’s Door” Circular Steel Cage, Lio Rush, Jay White’s Surprise Return, & More

Jun 29, 2026

AEW held a media scrum following Sunday’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2026 event at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.

Some of the notable highlights included:

During her portion of the media scrum, 2026 Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup winner Mercedes Mone gave her thoughts about why she continues to use Eddie Guerrero’s Three Amigos move in her matches and the influence he had on her wrestling career. Mone stated “Every time I wrestle, I feel like he’s with me … He’s the one that made me be the wrestler that I am today, when I watched him, when I was 10 years old. Every time that I hit the Three Amigos, I look up to him, because I would not be here without him. It’s so crazy that he’s still so a part of my life and my wrestling career. I still look up to him, even though he’s not with us.”
On the topic of her match against Maya World in the Finals of this year’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament, Mone stated “Yeah, and you saw me teach her a lesson tonight, right? She learned today. It’s honestly crazy for me and any time I think about it, this whole week I was a little emotional. I’m like, ‘Another one that I get to wrestle? Another woman that has joined this beautiful, beautiful sport of professional wrestling, I get to wrestle them?…’ They’re all over the world and I cannot believe what I’ve done in wrestling at such a young age and here I am still so young in my prime at 34 and I’m not stopping. I’m only getting greater so, it feels incredible and Maya (World), I’m so proud of her. I’m really, really proud of her. But damn, yeah, she learned. She learned a lot today.“
On the topic of her upcoming match against Thekla for the AEW Women’s World Championship at All In 2026, Mone stated “You mean, is she ready for me? Do you think I’m scared of a spider that’s five-foot?”
During her portion of the media scrum, AEW Women’s World Champion Thekla came out wearing Starlight Kid’s mask that she took off from Kid and stole following their match for her title.
On the topic of Mercedes Mone’s comments about their upcoming match, Thekla responded stating that she didn’t watch the Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup Finals match and stated “Did she win? I didn’t watch.“
During his portion of the media scrum, 2026 Men’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup winner Will Ospreay gave his thoughts about winning this year’s tournament and getting to main event this year’s All In event at Wembley Stadium. Ospreay stated “I have just punched my ticket to the main event of Wembley Stadium. I’m fighting for so much, for a dream, for so many kids that ever just wanted to be a part of Wembley Stadium. To be in that place, I have an opportunity to be the first Englishman to ever win a World Championship on English soil. I’m on cloud nine right now… as the winner of the Owen Hart Cup, I wanna say thank you. Thank you to everybody who has supported me from day one. Thank you to mom and dad for buying me that wrestling ring, thanks to all the backyard wrestling boys that I love. Thank you to everyone from Revolution Pro Wrestling, from Pro-Wrestling: EVE, to New Japan Pro-Wrestling and to Tony (Khan). Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity. Thank you to everybody that has supported me throughout this crazy journey. I hope I don’t let you down. Let’s get to Wembley.”
On the topic of his match against Swerve Strickland in the Finals of this year’s Men’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament, Ospreay stated that the main thing pushing him to keep going in the main event match was his motivation to get In-N-Out burgers afterwards.
During his portion of the media scrum, AEW CEO Tony Khan gave his thoughts about how he would love for AEW to do some special big things in Spring of 2027 in reference to potentially holding a WrestleMania style weekend of events in the United States due to WrestleMania 43 being in Saudi Arabia.
On the topic of WWE announcing two events taking place on the same day as this year’s All In event on August 30th, Khan stated “I did see that. I did see that. I saw that one, yeah … It’s good. It’s double the compliment Jimmy Crockett got. That’s good, twice as nice as they were to Jimmy. That’s great. I’ll be sure to take it that way. I think we’re going to have a great AEW All In and really looking forward to going back to Wembley Stadium. It’s going to be the biggest night in AEW wrestling. I can’t speak to what the other promotions are doing but I did see that announcement,” he continued. “I saw that with our own show going on tonight, so not a lot I can do other than just hope we have a really good show and plan and prepare that we will have a very good show for AEW All In.”
On the topic of the potential of AEW holding a future All In event on the West Coast of the United States, Khan stated that would be something he’d like to do and California being a great place for AEW shows.
On the topic of the debut of the new round steel cage for the 12-Man Steel Cage match between Team MJF and Team Briscoe, Khan stated “It was a very cool idea. It was Mike Mansury (who) asked about putting a round steel cage. I thought it was a really cool concept so it came out really good and being at the Forbidden Door and being a deadly cage, we called it Death’s Door. It was a very, very cool idea and it looks great, and I would love to bring it back. So it was a very good debut for Death’s Door.“
On the topic of “Blackheart” Lio Rush’s character growth and popularity with AEW fans, Khan stated “You have to give him a lot of credit; he’s getting great engagement and responses in multiple places, multiple ways, and numerous promotions. He’s having a big month. He’s become the ROH World TV Champion and tonight he got involved n the Death Door cage match. It was a great reaction from the fans. He’s a great wrestler and I’ve been a fan for a long time. Five years ago, I took Lio under my wing and I clearly misread what Lio’s interests were because I tried to teach him about finances and the business side of pro wrestling and he is not interested in that, clearly, he’s got a completely different mindset. It’s not about stocks or leveraged buyouts or the financial world. Clearly, it was a misguided attempt at mentorship on my part because he’s embraced something far more lucrative and tapped into something that the crowd wants to see because people love what Lio is doing, and it gets a response everywhere we go.“
Khan also gave his thoughts about Maya World’s performance in this year’s Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament and her growth as a performer. Khan also stated that he is excited for her future of her wrestling career. Khan also gave his condolences to World and her family over the recent passing of her brother.
On the topic of Jay White’s surprise return from his broken hand injury at Forbidden Door and when he was medically cleared to return, Khan stated “I thought Forbidden Door was the perfect place for him to make his return, given how he arrived here in the first place, and given the way he was exited from New Japan Pro-Wrestling and then David Finlay, while he was gone, arrived into AEW. It just tied everything together perfectly… Jay White actually just officially got cleared this week so this was something we were hoping he was gonna get cleared and he has just been physically cleared and it’s huge excitement so this was something we were hoping and aiming towards and working for and it came out and worked perfectly.“
On the topic of Yota Tsuji’s recent comments about him not wanting to defend his IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Forbidden Door and boycotting the event, Khan stated “I really am a big fan of Yota Tsuji. I have a lot of respect for him and the IWGP World Title. I would love to have him year, and I’ve been a fan of his for many years. There was another side to what he said, and that’s that I’ve always shown great respect to him and the wrestlers. He’s always felt very respected by AEW when he’s come here, and he feels like the New Japan wrestlers get a lot of respect from the company and from me personally. I’m a big fan of his, and I’ve tried to let him know and always make him feel welcome.“

Full AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2026 post-show media scrum video:

Source: PostWrestling.com, Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6, F4WOnline.com