10 Most Desperate Ways AEW Got You To Watch
7. Bryan Danielson Plays Bullseye
It's a bloody good job AEW had the perfect replacement lined up for Bryan Danielson at Forbidden Door, because this was depressing and really ill-advised.
Everybody is aware, grimly, of Danielson's history with concussions. If Danielson had tweaked his knee, AEW may not have left his injury status undisclosed. Everybody led themselves down the path they couldn't bear to travel. The threat of a dream match not happening was less significant than the anxiety many wrestling fans at the beginning of last week. Instead of clarifying Danielson's injury status with a simple social media announcement, thereby getting it over with, AEW opted to draw a rating. The worst case scenario of Danielson retiring had already happened.
This was revealed not to be entirely ghoulish - at time of writing, Danielson is believed to be back fairly soon, and only suffered a minor setback in his recovery - but AEW still opted to give fans cruel hope over an uneasy 48 hour period.
"Here's the match you could have had, even if it wasn't expressly promoted" was such a strange approach to take. They knew what they had in their back pocket, but still, this almost exploitative situation could have been handled a great deal better.