Thanks to Tony Khan, a new phrase has entered the wrestling vernacular - “The Forbidden Door.” The owner of AEW used the term to refer to the once held belief that wrestling companies (re: WWE) don’t do business with each other. In reality, there is no such thing as the ominous-sounding “Forbidden Door.”

Related: Retribution & 9 Other Times Wrestling Did An Invasion Angle

In various forms, the WWE, and plenty of other promotions throughout the years have been open to working with one another. Even Vince McMahon’s initial expansion was the cause of him coming into territories and asking to work with them or buy them out. When they refused, well...you know.

Updated on December 8th, 2021 by Patrick Mocella: As we head into 2021, it appears that AEW will have to close their Forbidden Door for a little bit as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has shut down the border of Japan keeping any Japanese NJPW wrestlers stuck in their home country. Not only that, but the partnership between IMPACT Wrestling and AEW has come to an end. Even without AEW crossing over with other wrestling companies, the wrestling business has such a large history of doing crossovers that we can discuss them more. In fact, the origins of the heel Vince McMahon character can be traced back to Jerry Lawler's Memphis territory.

Wrestling Companies’ Titles Were Defended In Other Promotions

The Heavenly Bodies Pose

Perhaps what TK means by The Forbidden Door is higher profile working relationships between AEW and other companies aside from WWE had with companies over the years.

Currently, Kenny Omega is running around as the AEW World Champion, as well as AAA Mega and Impact World Champion as well. Jon Moxley is the IWGP US champ for New Japan. While nowhere near as prolific, even WWE had featured several companies’ titles on their show as well. Both as favors to Jim Cornette, the NWA and Smokey Mountain titles had been on WWE TV. The Heavenly Bodies even defeated The Rock N Roll Express for the SMW tag straps at the 1993 Survivor Series.

Collision In Korea

Inoki And Flair Collide In Korea

Not only did WCW have a working relationship with New Japan in the mid 90s, it gave birth to the largest event in wrestling history, over 100,000 attended the New Japan / WCW Supershow, Collision in Korea.

Related: Dark Side Of The Ring Recap: Collision In Korea

Thanks to Eric Bischoff’s desire to make WCW feel more like a global company, he worked to cultivate relationships with both New Japan and produced AAA’s When Worlds Collide PPV, which helped to introduce the world to future stars like Rey Mysterio, La Parka, and Eddie Guerrero.

WWE Gets Extreme

ECW Invades WWE Mind Games

Perhaps the most well-known cooperative partnership was between WWE and ECW. The WWE came to ECW’s rescue when they agreed to have Tazz return to ECW to defeat Mike Awesome for the title before heading to WCW.

ECW also made several appearances on WWE TV for years, most notable at In Your House: Mind Games and invading Raw. But when Jerry Lawler headed to ECW to assault Tommy Dreamer, right after he finally beat Raven, The King nearly caused a riot.

WWE Hires Promoters

Jerry Lawler WrestleMania 27 Entrance

WWE might seldom acknowledge the competition over the years, but they’ve also worked with several promotions and even hired their promoters too. Jerry Lawler, Jerry Jarrett, Jim Cornette, and Paul Heyman have all not only worked or are still working for WWE. But they brought their promotions along for the ride too. The aforementioned Cornette had his SMW and even the NWA featured on TV and got to promote the first-ever Undertaker vs Kane (as Unabomb) match in SMW. The Jerrys’ USWA promotion was the first to feature the evil Mr. McMahon character that would dominate WWE TV for years.

RELATED: Was Paul Heyman's Era Of Smackdown The Best In WWE History?AEW is defInitely the newest toy for wrestling fans and like any kid with a new toy, AEW is coveted above all other promotions for some. Tony Kahn both as a character and a promoter has to put his promoter cap on and look for new and exciting ways to try and differentiate AEW from other promotions. While AEW might be a little more open to directly featuring and speaking about other companies than WWE has done, but let’s not discredit the work that WWE had done over years to team up with other companies.

With chatter that WWE is trying to garner an exclusive relationship with New Japan, they might be willing to work with other companies, but as always, the other company needs to be exclusive to WWE.

Vince McMahon's Heel Character Began In Memphis

Vince McMahon Jerry Lawler Memphis Storyline

While it is commonly assumed that the Vince McMahon heel character began with the infamous Montreal Screwjob, this couldn't be further from the truth but it's easy to see why. After all, if you lived in Memphis, Tennesse you got to see the origins of "Mr. McMahon".

While McMahon played a heel character in both the WWE and Lawler's Memphis territory, there were some subtle differences between the two. Instead of being in control of everything, McMahon would send down his WWE Superstars in an attempt to take out Jerry "The King" Lawler. These wrestlers included Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Tatanka, Macho Man Randy Savage, and more. It's quite astounding to not only see otherwise babyface wrestlers cut heel promos on the local crowds but also to see a prototype of the Vince McMahon on-screen we'd see in 1998 and beyond.

Differences Between Vince McMahon's Memphis Character And His WWE One

WWE Steve Austin Staring At Vince McMahon With Sgt. Slaughter Behind McMahon

While his character in the WWE wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty in the ring and was generally not afraid to really let loose, the Memphis character of Mr. McMahon was toned down relative to his later incarnation. He rarely raised his voice on promos and instead generated much of his heat by flaunting his "coastal eliteness" and condescendingly mocking the local hero Lawler and the unwashed masses of the "lowly" Memphis citizens. While there certainly was a maniacal edge to his promos at points, it was nothing compared to what we'd see later in WWE.

In a way, it's a shame that it's impossible to have an angle like this in pro wrestling nowadays as the internet is an open book, but the Forbidden Door can certainly generate unique angles as history shows.