AEW’s Danhausen recently credited himself and Orange Cassidy with attracting new fans to the wrestling business.
The ‘Very Nice, Very Evil’ wrestler began his career on the independent wrestling scene and grew himself a large and loyal fanbase after developing the ‘Danhausen’ character.
He was eventually signed by AEW in January 2022, but his signing was met with some backlash from some wrestling fans that find his persona “too goofy” for All Elite Wrestling.
Orange Cassidy often receives similar criticism for his unique character, with Jim Cornette labelling a recent Cassidy match against Wardlow as “embarrassing”.
Danhausen recently appeared on the HardLore podcast in a rare out-of-character interview and discussed the mixed response that characters like his and Orange Cassidy receive from fans:
“I feel me and Orange Cassidy are the ‘go to’ people for people to complain about when people don’t like, ‘Oh, this is too goofy for wrestling.’ Also, we’re the two people I always hear, ‘Oh, my friends don’t like wrestling, but they love you two,’ and now they watch, or ‘Oh, I wasn’t really watching, but I saw you two, so I started.’”
The popular AEW star elaborated on the positives of having such unique personas on the show and how they can help bring new eyes to the product that can then go on to discover some of the more traditional, yet talented, professional wrestlers:
“It’s a testament to, we’re creating new fans, which is what you should be doing as a wrestler. That’s exactly what all of our jobs should be and I feel only a handful of people are actually doing that. Whenever anyone comes up to me, it’s multiple people every single line I do a meet & greet, ‘I never watched wrestling, but I found you on YouTube.’
Great, that means I’m creating new fans who haven’t watched people like Dante Martin, who is a tremendous athlete. Now they’re watching him like, ‘Oh, this weird guy got me into this and now I can see Bryan Danielson, Dante Martin, Jade Cargill,'”
Danhausen is set to appear on the August 12th edition of AEW Rampage, teaming with Erick Redbeard (the former Erick Rowan) against the Gunn Club in tag team action.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription.