On Saturday’s episode of “AEW Collision,” legendary Japanese wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi battled Swerve Strickland in a match that was…not great, with Strickland having to resort to some quick and innovative thinking to salvage a Tanahashi botch. It was a poor omen going into Forbidden Door, where Tanahashi was set to face MJF in a show-opening AEW World Championship match.

And yet, despite Tana’s clear limitations, the match was actually going pretty well at first! In our “Collision” review, we said that Strickland wasn’t the ideal opponent for the Ace, since his style relied on the exact sort of quick, precise movement that Tanahashi can no longer rely on. MJF, on the other hand, is the perfect opponent for an aging star like Tanahashi, as the match could be built more around character work and less around ring work. As a result, the majority of the match went well, as MJF worked his absolute ass off while expertly telling the story of someone who doesn’t want to be here and doesn’t understand why he hasn’t won by now.

Unfortunately, it all fell apart at the finish, which involved (a) a comically lengthy roll-up by Tanahashi while the referee was distracted, followed by (b) MJF needing the Dynamite Diamond Ring to defeat a man who was clearly past his prime. The larger story of MJF understandably remains one about his own insecurity, but this is the exact kind of match he should be winning clean, and the finish was somehow overcomplicated and abrupt at the same time.