AEW World Champion MJF and Mark Briscoe name their teams for the Forbidden Door cage match. Plus, Mercedes Moné meets Hazuki for a spot in the Owen Hart finals. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on TSN2, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.
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AEW World Champion MJF, Mark Briscoe name their teams for Forbidden Door
Last Wednesday night didn’t go the way Maxwell Jacob Friedman had hoped. For weeks, he has rebuffed Mark Briscoe’s efforts to get a shot at MJF’s AEW World Championship, but he learned on Dynamite that Briscoe might have a pathway to one. Needless to say, things might not turn out well for the champion.
After Briscoe defeated PAC with a Jay Driller, he grabbed the mic and told Friedman he has a way to get a title shot, something that piqued the champion’s interest. Friedman arrived on the stage and blew Briscoe off yet again, but he had a gift for the 13-time ROH World Tag Team Champion in the former of a sneak attack from the Lethal Twist (Jay Lethal, Blake Christian and Lee Johnson), who MJF had paid off. While they briefly got the better of Briscoe, he fought back and was soon joined by his Conglomeration stablemates in Roderick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly and Tomohiro Ishii to send them packing.
Then Briscoe dropped the bomb on MFJ: he had spoken to AEW booker Tony Khan and had arranged a 12-man tag match for June 28’s Forbidden Door. If Briscoe’s team wins, he gets a shot at the AEW World Championship. Oh, and the match would be in a steel cage.
Not exactly flush with friends, MJF offered a briefcase full of cash to Don Callis later in the evening for the loan of five members of the Family to make up the rest of his team. But there would be more cost to that than just the money. The TNT Champion, Kevin Knight, agreed to join up with MJF on the condition that he receive a shot at the title, something that Friedman was forced to hastily agree to to get him on board.
On Wednesday night’s Dynamite, we will learn the identities of the five men who will be joining MJF and Briscoe, respectively. While MJF’s quintet likely includes Knight and will be made up of the Family, who Briscoe will select isn’t that clear. Presumably, he will call on Strong, O’Reilly, Ishii and Orange Cassidy, but O’Reilly hinted on Collision this past Saturday night that there might be a non-Conglomeration component to this team.
If that intrigue weren’t enough, the selected competitors will meet in a regular 12-man tag later on Wednesday evening to whet the appetite for next Sunday night’s cage match. Just who will round out these teams and which of these sextets will strike the first blow on Wednesday night?
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Owen Hart Cup women’s semifinal match: Hazuki vs. “The CEO” Mercedes Moné
The 2026 edition of the Owen Hart Cup is fourth time AEW has run the tournament and, over the previous three years, there has yet to be a repeat winner. Mercedes Moné is looking to do something unprecedented in this year’s tourney. Not only is the former TBS Champion looking to become the first two-time winner, Moné will try to win two straight tournaments.
In 2025, Moné went through Julia Hart, ROH Women’s World Champion Athena and Jamie Hayter in the final to win the Owen. But that tournament victory didn’t lead to a happy ending for the six-time WWE Women’s Champion. Winning the tournament earned Moné a shot against then-AEW Women’s World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm at last summer’s All In pay-per-view at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX, but the champion managed to retain her title.
With another world title shot on the line, Moné wants a better finish this time around. After defeating Alex Windsor in the quarters, she will now meet STARDOM’s Hazuki on Wednesday night. Hazuki and Moné have crossed paths in the past.
The 28-year-old Reo Hazuki is a highly decorated competitor from Japan’s top women’s promotion. A former High Speed Champion, she also held the Goddesses of Stardom Championships on three occasions with Koguma and is a four-time Artist of Stardom Champion, alongside IYO SKY on all four occasions. Hazuki also held the CMLL Japan Women’s Championship.
Hazuki made her AEW debut on the May 30 Collision, defeating fellow Owen semifinalist Maya World before defeating CMLL Women’s World Champion Persephone the falling week to advance to the semis. While neither of her previous matches were easy, Moné presents a difficult challenge for Hazuki. Moné is an opponent she has never previously defeated.
At the 2023 edition of New Japan’s Sakura Genesis, Hazuki and AZM challenged Moné for her IWGP Women’s Championship in a three-way match. Hazuki wasn’t pinned, but Moné did pin AZM to retain her title. Hazuki had a second shot against Moné at the 2024 Strong Style Evolved show in Long Beach, CA, this time for the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship. The bout went nearly half and hour and Moné emerged victorious.
Defeated twice by Moné, what can Hazuki do differently on Wednesday night? Can she find a way to pick up a win or will Moné head to another final?
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Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland meet face-to-face
Much has changed in the past year for Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland. At All In last summer, the two men teamed up to defeat The Young Bucks (Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson) in an instant classic. Afterwards, the two parted ways on good terms, but when the two longtime friends meet up in the ring on Wednesday night, things might not be so cordial.
After All In, Ospreay went on to miss six months of action thanks to a neck injury incurred at the hands of the Death Riders. Upon his return this past spring, he attempted to enact revenge against Jon Moxley, but was foiled in his attempt to wrest away his AEW Continental Championship at April’s Dynasty in Vancouver. Since then, though, Ospreay has aligned himself with Moxley and the Death Riders as Mox looks to turn Ospreay into the AEW World Champion. The tutelage has worked, thus far, with Ospreay defeating Samoa Joe and AEW National Champion Mark Davis to advance to the final where the winner will earn an AEW World Championship match at Wembley Stadium for All In.
If Ospreay is a different man, so is Strickland. The former AEW World Champion’s obsession with once again becoming top dog forced him into making some drastic changes, embracing his brutality to again become the self-styled “Most Dangerous Man in AEW.” Swerve has been a wrecking ball in recent weeks, defeating ROH World Champion Bandido and Brody King (thanks to help from Prince Nana) to advance to the final.
Just what will Ospreay and Strickland have to say to (and about) each other on Wednesday night?
