Danhausen isn’t leaving AEW anytime soon.
Back in June, it was revealed that the AEW star’s contract was coming up in July. At the time, it was apparent that Danhausen was done with All Elite Wrestling as he hasn’t been on ROH/AEW television since February 2024. He did make a cameo at Final Battle last year, but his brief return didn’t lead to anything significant.
But it appears that Danhausen will remain all elite. Against his wishes.
According to Fightful Select, Tony Khan added time to Danhausen’s contract due to the seven months he missed because of a major injury that kept him out of action for a good period of 2023.Reportedly, Danhausen's extension goes through early 2026, though the exact date is currently unknown.
Danhausen specifically requested AEW to not renew his contract option so he can leave the promotion and become a free agent. It’s unknown why Tony Khan went against his wishes and extended his deal. It’s certainly been a strange case as it’s clear that AEW doesn’t have much use for the 35-year-old.
There haven’t been any reports of Danhausen catching any heat with Tony Khan or other AEW officials. Nor is there confirmation that AEW is gearing up to bring back Danhausen in a major way. This seems like another Ricky Starks/Miro situation. All we can do is speculate since there’s no information about this situation, but on the surface, this does seem like a petty move from Tony Khan.
When Danhausen first arrived in 2022, he was a popular act as the crowd was slowly getting into his partnership with Hook. Then Danhausen suffered a torn pectoral muscle in 2023. That kept him out of action for a lengthy period of time. Danhausen did make a brief return to ROH in February 2024, beating Brandon Cutler on a random episode, but nothing else came out of it.
Since then, Danhausen has been fighting all around the independent scene. The AEW star did speak about his AEW absence with Chris Van Vliet in February and as you can imagine, it’s quite a frustrating experience for him.
"For a long time I was there, I just wasn't doing anything," Danhausen said. "Which is like 'If you don't have anything for me, that's fine. But I feel like we have to find something for me.' At some point, they were just like 'You can just stay home.' And I was like 'Okay, cool.
That's great, because I appreciate that, because then I'm not just being brought out to whatever.' And then they were letting me do the indies and doing the conventions, and it just helps me, again, stay sharp, which is, in turn, for them. And also, still, I always looked at that as I'm still representing the company then, in a way, because I'm on these shows. So that's better than me just not being seen on the show."
Hopefully this situation turns around where either Tony starts to book him or he decides to let him out of his contract.