Will Ospreay and Real Winners and Losers of AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door Match Card

AEW returned to pay-per-view Sunday with its annual co-promoted Forbidden Door pay-per-view featuring stars from New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

The show featured superb in-ring competition, a red-hot crowd and outcomes that set the stage for the promotion's top stories and stars moving forward.

Who capitalized and emerged from the show as a winner and who was less fortunate?

Find out with this look at the real winners and losers from the PPV at the O2 Arena in London.

Winner: Alex Windsor

All Elite Wrestling

One of three challengers to Mercedes Moné and the TBS Championship, Windsor was moments away from securing her first title in AEW and doing the seemingly impossible by defeating the CEO.

Late in the four-way bout that also featured CMLL's Persephone and Stardom's Bozilla, Windsor had the former trapped in a sharpshooter, only for Moné to deliver a Codebreaker and take her out of the equation.

Moments later, the champion outwrestled Persephone, countering a roll-up to secure the victory.

While she came up short in her journey to dethrone the champion, the outcome keeps Windsor in the title hunt. She had a win in-hand and proved, more than any of the other challengers, that she has the tools to defeat the champion.

It remains to be seen if Windsor remains in the title hunt beginning Wednesday on Dynamite, but the creative here suggests she will and that is a very good thing for the English-born competitor as she continues to establish herself in a loaded women's division.

She has certainly earned as much based on her performances since arriving on the scene in AEW.

Winner: Nigel McGuinness

All Elite Wrestling

Sunday night, McGuinness squared off with one of the finest technical wrestlers ever in New Japan's IWGP world champion Zack Sabre Jr. and not once did he look out of place or overwhelmed by the moment.

McGuinness fed off the energy of his hometown crown in London, turned back the clock, and showed out while childhood hero (and pre-match vignette co-star) Johnny Saint watched from ringside.

While he lost to the top dog in NJPW, McGuinness shined in his return to the squared circle, in front of hometown fans, friends and family, and HE was allowed the opportunity to perform before them one more (last?) time.

An opportunity he more than deserved.

Losers: FTR

All Elite Wrestling

Does the impending match between FTR and the reunited Adam Copeland and Christian Cage need the tag team titles at the center of it? Absolutely not.

With that said, it is difficult to argue Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler's momentum and credibility did not take a hit with Sunday's loss in a three-way dance for the AEW World Tag Team Championship.

Moments after Ricochet, Toa Linoa and Bishop Kaun attacked The Hurt Syndicate's Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin and brawled up the aisle with them, the self-proclaimed best team in the world had a chance to secure the titles.

Instead, they lost to a thrown-together team of Ring of Honor world champion Bandido and Brody King that may be riding a wave of momentum in the midst of meteoric rise but should not be able to best FTR.

That the finish was a mess, thanks to Wheeler badly mistiming the false save during the referee's count, only added to a frustrating night for the former two-time champions.

A date with Copeland and Cage awaits, so the celebrated tandem will be just fine, but outside of another great match, the positive takeaways are fewer than normal.

Winner: Brody King

The big man has long flashed breakout potential, both in trios and tag team action, as well as singles competition. A competitor who is deceptively fast for his size, he has shined in matches against the best and brightest in professional wrestling.

He has seized the opportunity that teaming with Bandido presented him and thrived, forming an odd-couple tandem that fans got behind, and Sunday, they rode a wave of momentum all the way to the tag team titles, King's second stint with gold in AEW following his reign as trios champions with The House of Black.

King was greeted with chants from the fans, stood face-to-face with Bobby Lashley and did not back down, and ultimately catapulted his partner into a 450 splash on Dax Harwood that earned Brodido the unexpected win.

It will be interesting to see how long they reign, but Sunday's win was a sign of appreciation for King's fantastic performances, no matter the spot on the card.

Loser: Wardlow

Oh look, Wardlow is back.

The former TNT champion returned to AEW after a year-plus absence from the promotion Sunday, attacking Prince Nana moments after Kazuchika Okada defeated Swerve Strickland to retain the company's unified title.

From there, he revealed himself to be the latest member of the Don Callis Family.

In any other circumstance, this would be a night worthy of "winner" status. It was, on the surface, a meaningful return in a strong angle that should set up a match for Strickland upon his return.

Except, this is Wardlow we are talking about and until AEW can book him in an even halfway consistent manner that actually pays off this latest moment, there is no reason to believe he will not fade into the background.

As he has numerous times in the past, thanks to an inconsistent and hot-or-cold booking approach.

Loser: Athena

All Elite Wrestling

Athena has dominated Ring of Honor for over 1,000 days as women's world champion. But she has yet to prove she can win championship gold on the biggest stages of the AEW main roster.

She fell to Mercedes Moné on an episode of Dynamite during the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, and she lost to "Timeless" Toni Storm in their AEW Women's World Championship clash in London on Sunday.

What made Sunday's loss worse than the defeat at the hands of The CEO was the manner in which she achieved it. The American Joshi dominated, taking advantage of Storm's injured neck, which she inflicted leading into the show via piledriver on the ring steps.

She was the better of the two wrestlers in Sunday's match, but instead of seizing the opportunity to put her over Storm and pay off her long journey back to the main roster and championship contention, she lost after Mina Shirakawa fended Billie Starks off, providing a momentary distraction that Storm took advantage of by applying a crossface chicken wing and winning via submission.

It was an anticlimactic conclusion to a match that appeared to be the opportune time to establish Athena's star by defeating the four-time champion and earning her another world title.

Instead, she lost, unfortunately confirming her place in the grand scheme of things for now, despite continued excellence across all of the company's programs and regardless of its prominence.

Loser: AEW World Championship Match

All Elite Wrestling

It should have been apparent the moment the array of stipulations was announced for the AEW World Championship Match between "Hangman" Adam Page and MJF that things were going to get messy, and did they ever.

The narrative logic was all over the place.

MJF demanded that one of the stipulations for the match was that Page could lose his title by disqualification, yet did nothing to antagonize Hangman to get to that point that his title reign was actually in danger.

If anything, it was the challenger who spent the match narrowly avoiding disqualification. It was he who cheated at every turn, trying desperately to win the title that once defined him.

There was little to no effort put into telling the story that the stipulations had set up, begging the question: why go there in the first place?

Page and MJF are more than capable of having a great match on their own, without the unnecessary overbooking and nonsense that played into the final moments of this match and badly hurt its overall quality.

No blood, tables, chairs, or contract use could make up for the fact that the match was a narrative mess that pulled out every cheap spot but failed to tell the story that set it up in the first place.

Page and MJF, both key to the rejuvenation of the AEW product on the road to Forbidden Door, deserved better than this. Whether they laid out the entirety of the match or were given certain beats to work into it, this did not work at all, despite the efforts of the competitors.

Hopefully, based on the teases by the commentary team involving the latter's contract for a guaranteed title opportunity, they will have a shot at redemption at some point in the future.

Winner: Will Ospreay

All Elite Wrestling

The Aerial Assassin needs surgery and will miss considerable time away from AEW amid two herniated discs. It is the worst injury Ospreay has faced in his career and the time table, as well as what the future looks like for him, is unknown at this time.

Facing the great unknown, Ospreay entered the O2 Arena in front of his hometown fans, friends, and family, and was the heart and soul of Sunday's Lights Out Steel Cage Match.

He did not drop jaws like Darby Allin and his fearless pursuit of the awe-inspiring high spot, and he did not even secure the win for his team. That honor was bestowed upon the legendary Hiroshi Tanahashi as the Ace of New Japan Pro-Wrestling delivered High Fly Flow to Matt Jackson for the win.

Instead, it was Ospreay's willingness to deliver all that fans expect to him, then take a backseat as others around him shined. It is that approach that has helped define his run to this point in AEW, during which he has not hesitated to put others, like Kyle Fletcher and Swerve Strickland, over at the expense of padding his own win-loss record.

Even in his final appearance for the company, during which he could have basked in the spotlight and shared a truly special moment with his fellow Londoners, he instead found himself beaten down and left motionless in the ring by The Death Riders, who rebuilt their heat in a show-closing angle.

Ospreay is the rare talent who lives up to the hype and exceeds expectations. He is also a giving performer, someone willing to think of the larger picture rather than his own immediate benefit.

He wrapped up this chapter of his AEW run Sunday night as only he can, paying homage to a mentor (Tanahashi) and ensuring the company he has helped revive continues its hot streak by giving it one last big moment to build off of.