Pour a double for the San Jose circular cage madness

Pull up a barstool. Pour yourself a double of whatever cheap whiskey is on the bottom shelf. Let's talk about last night in San Jose.

Forbidden Door 2026 rolled into the SAP Center on June 28, 2026, and if you expected a polite night of wrestling, you have clearly never watched professional wrestling. While Mercedes Mone was busy winning the Owen Hart Women's Tournament, and Will Ospreay was claiming the Men's crown, the real lunacy was saved for the cage. We also saw Jay White return to help Christian Cage and Adam Copeland retain their gold, but that was just the appetizer.

The main course was a 12-man circle cage war that felt like a fever dream. It was Team DCMJF (MJF, Kazuchika Okada, Kyle Fletcher, Kevin Knight, Andrade El Idolo, & Jake Doyle) taking on the babyface squad of Mark Briscoe, Konosuke Takeshita, Orange Cassidy, Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong, & Darby Allin. What followed was a beautifully chaotic car crash of weapons, betrayal, and a hockey bag.

Weapons, skateboards, and video game consoles

AEW did not just open the forbidden door; they tore it off the hinges and threw it at the wrestlers. The circular cage was packed with weapons that looked like they were cleared out of a suburban garage sale. Kyle Fletcher was running around using an old video game console as a weapon.

Darby Allin, being Darby Allin, decided a skateboard was the perfect tool to carve up a bloody Fletcher. Then Mark Briscoe brought out the thumbtacks, only to immediately get tossed off the top rope right onto them.

The match was a non-stop highlight reel of pure violence. Roderick Strong executed a nasty angle slam off the apron through a table. Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada had a brief, electric face-off where Takeshita looked through a bag and just flipped Okada off.

Takeshita then dropped Kyle Fletcher and Okada with a double German suplex that probably registered on the Richter scale in San Jose. Kevin Knight landed a double stomp from the heavens onto Darby Allin for a close 2-count before the chaos escalated.

The hockey bag that broke the internet

Just when you thought the match had reached its peak weirdness, MJF tried to rip open Mark Briscoe's bleeding forehead with his diamond ring. That was when Lio Rush popped out of a hockey bag. Yes, you read that correctly.

The Ring of Honor World TV Champion was stuffed inside a zipped bag in the middle of a steel cage match. He proceeded to bite Okada's hand before hitting a wild action sequence on the heels.

Okada, who is far too expensive to be dealing with mid-carders biting his fingers, shut that down immediately. The Rainmaker hit a massive lariat, stuffed Rush back into the hockey bag, and zipped him right back up.

It was hilarious, ridiculous, and completely over the top. It was the exact kind of professional wrestling that makes you want to explain the plot to a non-fan just to watch their brain melt.

Then came the explosion. Kevin Knight climbed to the top of the cage to grab another mysterious bag. The bag exploded, sending the poor man crashing down through a stack of tables below.

Darby Allin followed that up by hitting a coffin drop off the top of the cage onto a group of bodies, because Darby apparently has a death wish. Mark Briscoe hit the Jay Driller on MJF, but Jake Doyle broke up the pin to keep Team DCMJF alive.

Absolute chaos as @DarbyAllin sets off the explosive bag and takes out Team DCMJF from the top of the cage!

The betrayal and the final bell

But the biggest spot of the night was not a high-flying stunt. It was Andrade El Idolo finally losing his mind. Andrade decided he was done playing nice with MJF.

He turned on the self-proclaimed generational talent, leveling him with a brutal spinning backfist. To put an exclamation point on it, Andrade kicked his own teammate Jake Doyle square in the nuts, leaving MJF completely isolated.

Mark Briscoe capitalized instantly, dropping MJF with another thunderous Jay Driller to secure the pinfall victory for the babyfaces.

The internet reacts: Masterpiece or hot garbage?

As soon as the bell rang, the wrestling community split into three distinct camps. Each faction had its own perspective on whether this match was a masterpiece or a disaster.

  • The enthusiasts, who flooded Reddit with praise for the frantic pace. They argued that the circular cage and the variety of weapons kept the action fresh. To this crowd, Lio Rush emerging from a hockey bag and Darby Allin's coffin drop were exactly the kind of spectacles that make pay-per-view events memorable.
  • The skeptics, who filled Twitter with complaints about the match's complete lack of internal logic. They pointed out that zipping Lio Rush back into a bag mid-match was too cartoonish even for AEW. They felt the constant run-ins and gimmicks stripped away the serious, high-stakes feel of a cage match.
  • The contrarians, who focused entirely on the booking of Andrade's betrayal. They argued that the turn was highly predictable and did little to elevate Andrade's character. In their eyes, the nut-kick on Doyle was cheap heat that distracted from what should have been a clean, decisive finish.

Why the chaos actually worked

Let's cut through the noise and look at the facts. Yes, the match was a circus. Yes, the Lio Rush spot was cartoonish.

But in a 12-man cage match, you cannot book a technical masterpiece. You have to go for the throat and deliver memorable moments, and AEW did exactly that. The crowd in San Jose was unglued for a reason.

My only real critique is that the ending felt a bit messy. Andrade's turn was the right call, but the Doyle nut-kick felt a bit silly in the middle of a bloodbath.

However, Mark Briscoe getting the pin on MJF was the perfect payoff for the fans. It gave the babyfaces a huge win and set up several major feuds. It was a beautiful, bloody disaster, and I loved every second of it.