The very nice, very evil AEW star Danhausen rarely ever breaks character. However, in a recent interview on the HardLore podcast, the man under the face paint spoke about his wrestling persona and how he fits into the grand scheme of the sport.
Danhausen tends to be a bit of a polarizing figure in wrestling in the sense that fans tend to either love him or hate him. Danhausen is aware of this, but he isn't too bothered by his critics.
Creating New Fanhausens
During the interview, Danhausen said he believes that character like himself and Orange Cassidy, though many old-school fans complain about them, are effective tools when it comes to drawing people into the world of wrestling. The following transcription has been provided by Fightful:
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.' 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 via Hardlore
Wrestling is no longer near the same level of mainstream appeal it had a few decades ago and it's unclear whether the sport will ever reach that level of popularity again. Maybe in order to do so, the sport needs to change up its approach; while intimidating men like the Rock and Stone Cold became megastars in the past, perhaps the future belongs to lighthearted characters like Orange Cassidy.
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