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Former AEW star, Danhausen, makes WWE debut at Elimination Chamber

Danby: Daniel Hager8 hours agoDanielHagerOn3

Just one day after being removed from AEW’s roster page, Danhausen made his WWE debut at Saturday night’s Elimination Chamber PLE in Chicago.

Danhausen appeared in a crate opened by Monday Night Raw GM Adam Pearce and Friday Night SmackDown GM Nick Aldis. He was accompanied by multiple women, donning similar face paint. He is the second former AEW star to join the company this year. Royce Keys, FKA Powerhouse Hobbs, debuted at January’s Royal Rumble PLE.

In early February, a shipping crate appeared on Monday Night Raw. On the crate read, ‘Deliver to WWE. Do not open until 2/28/26.” Danhausen‘s arrival in WWE was expected, as he is close friends with current WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk. After a long hiatus, Punk returned to WWE at Survivor Series 2023 and is currently in the midst of his second World Title reign since his return.

He rose to prominence in the mid-2010s for appearances on the independent wrestling circuit. While he can certainly go in the ring, Danhausen has been praised as one of the most successful comedic wrestlers of this era. This led to his tenure in Ring of Honor from 2019-2021, until the company was purchased by All Elite Wrestling owner Tony Khan. He eventually made his AEW debut on the Jan. 26, 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite, appearing during a match between Adam Cole and Orange Cassidy.

He eventually requested his release from the company in August 2025, but it was not granted. Instead, his contract was extended until late February 2026. This was due to time missed due to a torn pectoral muscle in 2023.

Danhausen appears in crate, teased on WWE programming for last month

Donovan Danhausen, the man behind the gimmick, revealed the origin story of the Danhausen character during an episode of ‘Insight with Chris Van Vliet‘ last January.

“They were just like ‘it’s a Halloween show so do whatever you want, so I did the They Live makeup because I just watched some guy do a tutorial. I just copied it, and I learned from my dad doing makeup all the time.

“It was just a fun Halloween makeup. So I did that, and then I went back to doing normal Danhausen here and there but was then just like ‘this doesn’t feel the same. This kind of sucks still. It doesn’t feel right.’ I think it Jimmy Jacobs at an AIW seminar who told me ‘why don’t you just do your makeup more? Like all the time? I watched you do it and you looked very comfortable. You don’t look like you’re in your own skin (not in makeup).’ So then I started doing it more and more and more and more and started getting more comfortable with it.”

Danhausen was ranked as high as No. 158 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2020.