AEW Forbidden Door 2025: Brodido stun FTR and Hurt Syndicate to win tag titles in London shocker

London got its shock of the night early. In a wild three-way no-disqualification bout at the sold-out O2 Arena, Bandido and Brody King — a short-notice pairing now known as Brodido — walked out as AEW World Tag Team Champions. They did it by surviving FTR’s precision and a surprise ringside ambush that dragged The Hurt Syndicate out of the match and into a backstage brawl.

This was the first title change on a packed Forbidden Door card, and it changed the temperature of the whole show. The crowd sensed it too. One minute they were split between three teams, the next they were roaring through the upset as Bandido hit a top-rope frogsplash and then sprung off King’s legs for a 450 to seal the pin over FTR.

How a short-term pairing became champions

The road here wasn’t straightforward. AEW ran an eight-team tag tournament to set up the challenge, and both Brodido and FTR battled through their sides of the bracket. Their final on Dynamite ended in a 30-minute time-limit draw — a result that frustrated both teams and lit a fire under the division. AEW management didn’t book a rematch. Instead, they raised the stakes: both would challenge the reigning champions, The Hurt Syndicate, in a three-way at Forbidden Door. No disqualifications. No count-outs.

The Hurt Syndicate — Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin — came in as the power pairing. Lashley, with knockout strength and spears that change matches in seconds, and Benjamin, still lightning quick and stubborn on defense, had bullied their way through recent challengers. FTR, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, offered the opposite: clean lines, airtight timing, and tag fundamentals that turn small openings into finishes. Brodido? They were the question mark. Brody King is a wrecking ball. Bandido is speed and altitude. Together they hadn’t logged many reps, but they kept finding answers at the right moments during the tournament.

From the bell in London, it was chaos the way a no-DQ three-way tends to be. Bodies spilled to the floor early. Chairs came into play. The pace swung from FTR’s cut-the-ring-in-half approach to the champions’ heavy hits and back to Bandido’s aerial bursts. A lot of three-way tags fall into “two in, two out” patterns. Not this one. All six were mixing it up across the ring and the surrounding area, and the referee’s job was simply to count a finish whenever one appeared.

The match turned when a masked trio walked out through the lower bowl and made a beeline for The Hurt Syndicate. At first it looked like another London run-in — hoodies, face coverings, weapons in hand — but the attack was precise. Steel pipes cracked off guardrails and backs. Lashley swung first and fought back hard. Benjamin followed him into the melee as security scrambled. Minutes later, the masks came off near the entrance: Ricochet and the Gates of Agony were the ones behind the ambush.

Commentary instantly started connecting dots. Bryan Danielson, on headset for the show, floated the name on everyone’s mind: Was MJF pulling strings off-camera to take the champions out of the equation? No proof. No confirmation. But the timing forced the match into a different shape. With The Hurt Syndicate brawling to the back, it became a straight shootout between FTR and Brodido.

That’s when we got the clearest picture of what Brodido can be. Brody King ate a steel chair shot to the face from Dax Harwood — the kind of shot that usually ends conversations — and still kicked out. The O2 went from gasps to disbelief in a heartbeat. FTR tried to reset and line up their double-team finisher, the same way they’ve ended dozens of title matches. Bandido blew that up, halting the setup with a rope run and a frogsplash that caught both opponents flush.

The final sequence looked like a highlight reel built on instincts. King posted himself low. Bandido used his partner’s legs as a step, springing into a 450 splash that landed clean. Three slaps of the mat later, the referee waved it off. FTR sat up stunned. King, still dazed from the chair, looked like he was trying to process what just happened as he realized the belts were coming his way.

For Bandido, this adds another layer to an already stacked resume. He came in holding the ROH World Championship and now carries AEW’s tag gold on top. For King, this is his first championship in AEW — a payoff for months of heavy lifting in multi-man matches that often saw him as the enforcer rather than the finisher. For the division, it’s a jolt. A team formed earlier this summer now sits at the top, and that shakes up every plan underneath.

What the finish means for AEW’s tag landscape

Three-way no-DQ title matches are magnets for controversy, and this one brings enough to fuel weeks of TV. The Hurt Syndicate have a clear grievance after being jumped by a disguised group with pipes. FTR, who were seconds away from landing their close, will argue they were beaten in the scramble after the interference changed the matchup. Brodido, to their credit, made the moment count when it came and did it with a clean pin in the ring.

Expect rematch talk fast. FTR will want Brodido in a standard tag where they can control the pace and isolate. The Hurt Syndicate will want them both and will point to the ambush as grounds for a do-over. AEW has options: a straight rematch, a ladder match that plays into the chaos we just saw, or a two-out-of-three falls showcase that leans on structure. With a hot crowd in London and a UK market eager for more, the company could even run it back on an international special.

Then there’s the mystery (or not-so-mystery) angle. Ricochet and the Gates of Agony showed their faces. Why target Lashley and Benjamin? What did they gain? The broadcast very deliberately mentioned MJF as a possible architect without tying the bow. That leaves room for a reveal on Dynamite, and it threads AEW’s larger theme of the night: big swings, big surprises, and moving pieces across AEW and NJPW lines.

Style-wise, the new champions are going to be tough to scout. Bandido’s speed and smooth rope work pull opponents out of shape. King can flip a ring position with one lariat or cannonball in the corner. Put those together and you get sequences opponents aren’t ready for — like a springboard 450 off a partner’s legs to win the biggest match of your team’s short life. You can plan for FTR because you know what’s coming; stopping it is the hard part. With Brodido, you’re not sure what’s coming at all.

One undercurrent worth noting: this was not a quiet crowd. The O2 is known for singing and the kind of rolling chants you hear on big UK fight nights. That energy fed the match. Brody King’s kick-out after the chair caught the arena mid-breath. The finish landed like a surprise knockout. When the belts were handed over, you could see camera phones out everywhere, fans trying to capture a result most didn’t expect when they walked in.

Zoom out to the whole card and the booking choice makes even more sense. Forbidden Door was stacked: Kazuchika Okada challenging Swerve Strickland for the unified top prize, Toni Storm against Athena for the women’s title, Adam Page facing MJF, and a Lights Out Steel Cage war featuring top names from both AEW and NJPW. In a night built on crossovers and spectacle, a shock tag title change sets a tone: anyone can get caught, any belt can move, and the next segment might be the one people talk about for weeks.

There are business angles too. Bandido now anchors AEW’s tag division while holding a major ROH singles belt, a cross-brand wrinkle AEW has used before to keep stories moving between shows. King, who has often been the engine in multi-man brawls, finally has a center-stage prize. That gives AEW reason to feature them as week-to-week headliners, not just pay-per-view closers. It also gives chase stories to two sets of former champions with real claims, a matchmaking gift that writes its own TV.

AEW didn’t issue an immediate statement about the ringside attack or any disciplinary follow-up. That silence tends to be strategic. Let the speculation breathe on pay-per-view night, then pay it off on the next broadcast with replays and angles. If that’s the route, look for security footage, backstage scuffles, or a face-to-face segment that answers who planned the hit and why.

For fans who track the nuts and bolts, a quick rules reminder helps explain the result. In three-way tags with no disqualification, champions do not need to be pinned to lose their titles. Once The Hurt Syndicate were effectively removed from the ring by the brawl up the ramp, the math flipped against them. Brodido didn’t have to beat Lashley or Benjamin; they just needed a clean three-count on someone. They got it over FTR, and the belts moved.

Where does this leave the rest of the division? Lurking. Veteran tandems who didn’t get out of the tournament now see an opening against a new champion team still building chemistry. High-flyers will want Bandido in space. Heavy teams will want to test Brody King on the apron and grind the match down. And everyone will study the tape of how FTR nearly closed before the final swing, because those patterns repeat in big matches.

The human side matters, too. Brodido only started teaming earlier in the summer. They’ve been stitched together by opportunity and complementary skills rather than years of shared reps. Nights like this can bond a team for good. It’s one thing to win a showcase match. It’s another to wake up as the team with the targets on your backs, and to do it after eating chair shots, dodging chaos, and landing the cleanest move of the night when it counted.

Call it a meteoric rise, call it the right place at the right time, or call it smart timing in a company that rewards risk. However you slice it, the new champions earned their spotlight. Now the real work starts: defending the AEW Tag Team Titles against two elite former champions with grudges and a division full of opportunists who just saw a door swing wide open.

• Key questions now: Will AEW book an immediate rematch, and in what format?
• How will The Hurt Syndicate respond to the ringside attack?
• Was MJF involved, or was the ambush about something else entirely?
• Can a newly formed team hold steady once the scouting reports catch up?

Answers are coming fast. For now, London gets to say it watched a brand-new team win big on the biggest stage AEW has brought to the city since Wembley — a result that felt equal parts shocking, inevitable, and very much in the spirit of a pay-per-view built on breaking the usual rules.