Omega, Sabre Jr. Produce Show-Stealing Classic at Forbidden Door; Omega Wins via One Winged Angel

By: Thom Fain

Kenny Omega attempted the One Winged Angel three times on Sunday night before it finally stuck.

The first was an avalanche version from the top rope — Zack Sabre Jr. escaped, and both men came crashing to the canvas in a heap. The second, Sabre Jr. converted mid-air into a triangle choke, an act of technical violence so gnarly the crowd didn’t really know how to react, which is the best possible version of a crowd in a match of this stature. The third OWA, finally worked.

Twenty-six minutes and twenty-five seconds into their match at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door in Chicago, Kenny Omega pinned Zack Sabre Jr. and improved his all-time record against him to 3-0.

Omega and ZSJ — two wrestlers in what the generous would call the veteran stage of their careers, and what the honest would call the back nine — produced what fans agreed was the best match on a card that had no shortage of candidates. Their last singles meeting was the 2018 G1 Climax, and they’d never wrestled each other in America until Sunday.

Forbidden Door 2026 got a match worthy of the long wait.

Sabre Jr. spent the first half targeting Omega’s arm with the methodical focus that has been his professional calling card. Omega responded by taking the fight to ringside when the ring started feeling too much like Sabre Jr.’s room — a tactical adjustment that shifted the tempo and gave him enough space. What followed, of course, was a negotiation conducted via submission holds and V-Triggers, each man offering a style the other had to answer.

Omega won the final negotiation.

He is now the only man in recorded history to defeat Zack Sabre Jr. in every singles match they’ve had together. ZSJ survived the first OWA attempt, turned the second into a triangle choke that had the finish on a knife’s edge before Omega broke it with a powerbomb, and still lost. New Japan fans have asked for years whether the One Winged Angel could be stopped — and with the question being asked once again tonight in San Jose, it gave Sabre Jr. two clean opportunities to prove that it could.

In the end, the former Bullet Club leader batted .300 and brought the finish home against his British heavyweight counterpart.