Mark Briscoe turns a steel cage match into his path to MJF’s AEW World Title
Mark Briscoe has spent weeks chasing a singles match with MJF and getting nowhere. On Summer Blockbuster he stopped asking and changed the rules instead. After pinning PAC with the Jay Driller, Mark called out the AEW World Champion, absorbed another flat refusal then revealed the workaround Tony Khan had already signed. At Forbidden Door, a six-on-six steel cage match will pit Team MJF against Team Briscoe. If Briscoe's side wins, he finally gets his title shot.
That structure does a lot of quiet work. It keeps MJF out of a one-on-one with Mark, which protects the champion's stance that Briscoe is beneath the belt, while still building toward the match the crowd wants. MJF leaned into exactly that framing, casting himself as the rising tide of AEW and Mark as an anchor the company should be shielded from.
The stipulation also exposed how MJF plans to win. He had Jay Lethal, Blake Christian and Lee Johnson jump Briscoe after the match, then later walked into the Don Callis Family with a briefcase and paid for five members to fill his team. The Conglomeration evened the first attack, but the point landed.
The real story is that MJF is now protecting his championship with money rather than in the ring, which leaves Briscoe to out-fight a team the champion literally purchased.
The main event sorted the other marquee piece. Swerve Strickland beat Brody King, with help from Prince Nana, to reach the Owen Hart Cup final where Will Ospreay is already waiting. It is the second straight year AEW has built toward Forbidden Door through the Owen final, and this time the winner carries clear World Title implications into the summer. Kenny Omega versus Zack Sabre Jr. was also made official after Omega accepted the challenge. That gives San Jose three distinct hooks before anything has even been billed as the headliner. The cage match is the one to watch, because it is the only one with a championship hanging directly off the result.
