Danhausen and The Lucha Bros Expose the Differences Between AEW and WWE

I have a keen dislike for Lil Yachty. If it wasn’t for WWE’s uncomfortable love affair with quasi-celebrities, there is zero chance I ever hear his name and I’d live a happy and full life not knowing who in the blue Hell this untalented ingrate is. With that being said, did you ever have someone who you have no use for in life say something you agree with and it leaves you at a loss for words? Well, Lil Yachty did that when he said the following line.

“You just want a card full of five-star matches – Don’t be so uptight”

Do you know how much I hate that someone I have zero use for in life said something that was spot on accurate? Well, he did. And, I tip the cap to him for it. Lets examine why that is an accurate statement.

Never before has pro wrestling had more “tribalism.” While some might suggest there was more tribalism during the Monday Night Wars, in reality, I found most WCW fans were accepting of WWE and ECW while most WWE fans were the ones that were more “tribal” in their approach. And, ECW fans hated everything with a smile. WWE fans were the casual fans. And, your fandom of anything that wasn’t the flavor of the month was unacceptable to them. Sure, they liked the red and black nWo shirts – which I could argue hurt WCW more than it helped. But, at the end of the day, the casual wrestling fan that just wanted to fit in would watch WWE and had a dismissive view towards WCW and, likely, didn’t know what ECW was. By the way, WWE won that war. So, lets learn the lessons from that fact.

Like it or not, wrestling is best when it caters to a casual fan base.

I recall watching the 1997 World Series. The Miami Marlins team took off their baseball jerseys after a win in the series and revealed nWo T shirts. That was huge for WCW, right? No. For one, WCW didn’t show the footage on their TV so it meant nothing to the WCW fan base. They also didn’t feature any Miami Marlins players on WCW TV in the immediate thereafter when you would have to believe the players would have jumped at the opportunity if they saw fit to wear nWo T shirts under their jerseys during the most important games of their lives. But, aside from inept WCW leadership not capitalizing on the exposure, the dopey Major League Baseball announcers said, with a nudge and a chuckle, “Oh those crazy WWF fans.” If that doesn’t make your head nearly explode like in Scanners, I’m not sure what would. WCW literally had a World Series team in their T shirts after a win and managed to garner absolutely no exposure for it. That takes an amazing amount of ineptitude. It blows my mind.

Well, lets put the sins of the past behind us and focus on modern sins. In doing so, lets keep the focus on sports and wrestling after a fashion. Here’s how we’re going to play this.

AEW will never achieve mainstream success because their fans aren’t mainstream.

To prove the above statement as fact, I’ll focus on 3 talents. Danhausen as the first talent. Then, Penta and Fenix as the other two as a combined point.

Danhausen exemplifies the difference between the AEW and the WWE approach to wrestling. It also exemplifies how WWE is mainstream and appeals to the casual wrestling fan while AEW is determined to stay underground. See, Danhausen is now a global phenomenon and has been talked about during legitimate sporting events. Did this happen when he worked for AEW? Nope! It is happening now that he works for WWE… And it should surprise no one.

Danhausen made his AEW debut in January of 2022 during a match featuring Adam Cole and Orange Cassidy that featured a lead in attempting to match an old WCW video package where Vader and Sid went face to face. Cole and Cassidy resembled a those 2 only in that they are all human. However, the AEW stars resembled versions of Sid and Vader that were both left in the dryer too long and were on a sustained hunger strike. To say they didn’t look impressive would be an understatement. But, not everyone is at least 7 feet tall like Danhausen! Yes, that is a joke. Danhausen had been an indy darling and grew popular with fans of independent wrestling and Ring of Honor Wrestling with his corky persona. Often compared, especially early on, to the horror comedy character Svengoolie, Danhausen connected with people’s funny bones and, by doing so, proved himself to be a key merchandise mover. So, AEW wanted in on the Danhausen merch machine. For a while, Danhausen was AEW’s top merchandise mover battling for that spot with CM Punk during AEW’s most mainstream appeal garnering days. He did so with virtually no help from booking.

Tony Khan, the forgone conclusion winner to Dave Meltzer’s Booker of the Year Award, gave Danhausen zero TV time. In fact, for the last year plus of Danhausen’s AEW contract, he wasn’t used on TV nor even contacted by the management of the company. A guy who had the ability to make people buy T shirts based on virtually nothing was not suitable for AEW television. Why? Because Danhausen wasn’t going to give you a 30 minute “banger” every week. A “banger” you won’t remember 5 minutes after the match ends. But, he would give you a segment you would remember if given the opportunity.

Well, WWE picked up Danhausen Danhausen made his TV debut in February of 2026 and to say he has done more in 6 months with WWE than he did in 4 years with AEW would be a fact no one could deny. While Danhausen’s in ring isn’t superb, he has been featured on mainstream sports platforms even endorsed by the NBA champion New York Knicks. With football now in full swing, virtually every team is trying to get Danhausen to be a part of their franchise to curse their opponents. I say nearly all because you can bet the Jacksonville Jaguars are not one of them.

on WWE TV, Danhausen takes part in backstage segments that might remind fans of Jameson of the classic WWF Prime Time Wrestling days. Jameson was a possibly slow comedy character that ended up in strange situations such as getting thrown off the roof of the arena by the Berzerker. While the character is nothing alike, the presentation is. Danhausen is a comedy character who interacts with everyone on the show as big as John Cena and as low down the card as Kit Williams. Without having to have 30 minute bangers, he remains a popular part of the broadcast and sells merchandise hand over fist.

Why do you suppose AEW couldn’t figure out how to use him?

AEW seeks to appeal to the hardcore wrestling fan that watches Japanese wrestling and swears that the match at the Korakuen Hall that featured guys who have names that resemble eye charts who no one on this continent has ever and will ever hear of is fastly surerior to anything on WWE’s biggest cards including and especially WrestleMania. To put it in perspective, Dave Meltzer rated The Undertaker and Ric Flair as vastly superior to Hollywood Hulk Hogan and The Rock at the very same WrestleMania and the AEW fan base, who read Dave’s words as gospel, largely agree with that assessment. That, in a nutshell, explains why WWE is WWE and AEW will just be AEW.

Danhausen is a character. If AEW was even slightly sports entertainment, they could have made a killing off him. But, they’re not. And, somehow, still kind of did.

Penta is the star of the Lucha Bros!

If you watched AEW with the Lucha Bros, you probably saw your share of car crash matches that all were exactly the same featuring the Lucha Bros against the Young Bucks. You probably also saw that Fenix was pushed as if he was the star of the team and even got given a win over Jon Moxley in which he damn near killed the “Blue Eyed battler” as Jim Ross has termed him.

Of Penta and Fenix, real life brothers, the difference is clear. Penta has more charisma and can sell emotion and cut promos even in a mixture of languages that should confuse the audience but doesn’t. And Fenix? He can do flips and then play to the crowd after an impressive stuck landing while in the throws with his opponent who both celebrate to the audience over how acrobatic their contrived, obviously cooperative move just was completely forgetting that by all logic, they should be in the throws of a battle. In fact, what I just referenced happened on AEW Dynamite with Fenix on more than one occasion and I nearly threw my shoe through the screen because of how fake it made pro wrestling look.

In Lucha Underground, Penta showed himself as a bad ass performer with charisma that could work with anyone. In AEW, he was minimalized and the obvious focus was put on his somewhat injury prone brother.

Don’t get me wrong, Fenix is the better athlete of the two and can be coached to forgo his wrong psychology about wrestling. We’ve seen that with the fantastic match he had with Penta a few weeks ago on RAW and little by little, his work has been less Lucha and indy minded on SmackDown as the company tries to teach him American psychology. Penta already gets it. He long since has. But, AEW didn’t see that.

If you saw Penta and Fenix in AEW, you saw that AEW felt Fenix was the guy they could do something with. If you watch the same two in WWE, the correct guy is the uy who just tore the house down with Roman Reigns on RAW. Penta is the star of the brothers. Period. End of sentence.

In one line, Lil Yachty said the crux of my article. I hate that I have to credit him. But, he nailed it. AEW fans would rather see a card of 10 matches, each 30 minutes in length or more, all doing all the same moves as the match before and after it with only one size fits all talent and no one that has any chance of being picked out of a police line up by a casual wrestling fan … As for WWE, they want recognizable stars first and the “bangers’ will take care of themselves from that. WWE is the correct mindset. It is the tried and true method of success. And, well, AEW is determined to be the next WCW squandering opportunities like the Miami Marlins wearing their T shirts and ignoring it. Because, stupid is what stupid does. And, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps, cursed to?