Danhausen has been a strange case in AEW.
The AEW star is an interesting wrestler since his gimmick is better suited in a WWE environment. Still, Danhausen was one of the most over wrestlers on the roster in 2022 and he seemingly had a bright future in All Elite Wrestling. Then the 34-year-old ended up getting injured.
There’s no word on the plans that were scrapped for Danhausen, but he disappeared from AEW television for a long time. In fact, his last match on AEW television was a battle royal on December 30, 2023. Him being gone from AEW television for so long had nothing to do with an injury. Tony Khan simply had nothing for the AEW star once he was ready to go.
As you can imagine, that can be frustrating, especially for a young guy wrestling during his prime years. Danhausen sat down with Chris Van Vliet and discussed his career, including being off of AEW television for the entire 2024. He highlighted the toll it can take on his body when he’s not performing inside of a wrestling ring.
“I did the Halloween 3 segments. I was like, I want to do something fun for Halloween. I didn’t come back from this [injury] probably, I think it was fine in October, but it was still kind of like give it another month. So I was like well we could air these Halloween 3 style, annoying commercials until I come back and I was like cool, and then it kind of just didn’t happen. So I think that kind of sucked the air out of the return a little bit, in my opinion, at least for me it did.
It was built for Halloween and then I could have came back the next week and I just didn’t. Then it took a little bit more time, and then I think I did come back on Thanksgiving, so it’s like three or four weeks later. But I come out and I want to wrestle, because I don’t know if non-wrestlers might not know this, wrestling hurts, but it also hurts less if you do it more. So your body gets callous to it I guess.
So if you’re wrestling once every couple of months, or once every other month, or whatever it is, it sucks. Every single time it feels like the first time of going to wrestling school where it’s the worst. Then also your body is more susceptible to getting injured because you’re not used to that weird getting slammed or weird movements or whatever it is.
So I’d prefer to wrestle at least once a week, whether it be a dark match or whatever, just let me go out there for the crowd, do something. So that way if you need me for a TV, I’m fine, I’m ready to go. Then it’s not like, oh sh*t I haven’t wrestled in three months, all of a sudden I have to wrestle. I’m not in ring shape anymore. I don’t have a wrestling ring near where I live at all.”
Danhausen made his return at Final Battle, though there hasn’t been much follow-up since then. Though the AEW star has been absent from television, he’s been hard at work on the independent scene as he just wants to stay sharp so he’s always in ring ready.