For the past two episodes of WWE Monday Night Raw and WWE Friday Night SmackDown, a wooden crate was backstage with text on it explicitly stating it should not be opened until February 28, 2026—the date of the WWE Elimination Chamber premium live event.
Raw General Manager Adam Pearce and SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis traded the crate back and forth, passing the responsibility to their counterpart to deal with, before agreeing to open it up together. Meanwhile, WWE Superstars and the WWE Universe were left wondering what was in the crate.
With a quite literal "mystery box" storyline like this, the fans were speculating about everything under the sun, including the return of Chris Jericho, The Rock, Vince McMahon, the Gobbledy Gooker and more.
When the time came to open up the crate, inside of it was a wooden coffin, which Pearce and Aldis left to itself. The coffin then opened up on its own, and out of it stepped a collection of women in black leather unitards and red capes with face paint, followed by the debut of Danhausen.
Their dance routine continued into the ring, after Danhausen handed a glass jar of teeth to Michael Cole. Once the song was over, a few puffs of smoke finished the segment, turning the silence from the audience into some boos before moving on to the next segment.
Danhausen was signed to All Elite Wrestling in January 2022 and was listed as part of the roster as yesterday, but has since been removed, posting on social media about how he was free last night. However, Danhausen hadn't actually made any appearances for AEW in quite some time, having last wrestled on the Zero Hour of AEW Worlds End on December 30, 2023.
This is obviously not the greatest start for Danhausen under the World Wrestling Entertainment umbrella, particularly as a buddy of CM Punk making a debut in Chicago, which has historically been an important city for AEW, as you would think that he would have a better response than the lukewarm to flat out negative reception from the audience. However, as bad of a first impression as this was, there is always a chance things turn around, depending on what WWE plans to do with his more comedic character going forward.
What are your thoughts on Danhausen's debut? Drop them in the comments below!