Backstage Note On How Jericho, Danielson & Wight's WWE Raw Cameos Happened
How the AEW trio ended up congratulating John Cena on last night's WWE Raw.
A trio of All Elite Wrestling stars made unexpected appearances on last night's WWE Raw, crossing the United States promotional divide to congratulate John Cena on his career's 20th anniversary.
Much of the episode was built around Cena, whose WWE comeback featured the 16-time World Champion in a multitude of segments. AEW's Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson, and Paul Wight were featured alongside WWE regulars in a series of videos putting Cena's longevity over, with Danielson and Wight going by their respect Stamford ring names, Daniel Bryan and Big Show.
Fightful Select reports that WWE was able to secure "virtually everybody" that it had reached out to for Raw's congratulatory videos. Securing AEW's consent was not an issue, with company founder and president Tony Khan fine with the appearances, allowing Danielson, Jericho, and Wight to be featured on Raw.
Described as a "straightforward" situation, the idea was pitched to Khan after being formulated.
That all three AEW wrestlers share considerable history with Cena made them appropriate features on Raw. Unsurprisingly, the videos using Danielson and Jericho in the thumbnail were the two most-watched Raw clips uploaded to WWE's YouTube channel at the time of writing, respectively pulling in 214,000 and 232,000 viewers in three hours.