Top AEW stars “The Aerial Assassin” Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland battled each other in an AEW World Title Match at this year’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door PPV event and Ospreay reportedly proposed the idea to put Strickland’s title reign over in the matchup and to reinforce that Strickland was not just being positioned as a placeholder champion next to him, along with emphasizing the importance of the World Title itself.
According to Fightful Select, there was a different opponent being considered to challenge Strickland for the AEW World Title at the PPV, and NJPW sources revealed that Yota Tsuji was that person. It was also noted on the report that the Tsuji match was already in the works before the match with Ospreay was ultimately decided on. There is no word yet on if that plan ever made it to Tsuji, who did end up working the PPV during the Zero Hour pre-show by teaming up with Los Ingobernables de Japon to battle The Lucha Brothers and Mistico.
