What AEW's Danhausen Really Looks Like Without His Makeup

AEW star Danhausen has become an incredibly popular member of the Tony Khan-led company, from his partnership with FTW Champion HOOK to his honorary membership in the Best Friends. While he has yet to hold any championships in the promotion and doesn't actually wrestle that many matches, Danhausen has appeared frequently on AEW programming, including using his "curse" to help stablemate Orange Cassidy win the AEW All-Atlantic Championship. The unique character, complete with signature face paint and bizarre accent, has helped translate his cult following on the independent scene into a very successful start in AEW.

However, Very Nice, Very Evil performer hasn't always been the wrestler we know and love today. In a 2021 Chris Van Vliet interview, Danhausen made a rare out-of-character appearance, debuting a clean face that many AEW fans have never seen. Playing it off as "Very expensive, very evil CGI technology" to warrant the lack of theatrics, Danhausen explained how his unique character and face paint came to be.

In the Van Vliet interview, Danhausen explained that his character evolution was a natural, yet necessary, development during his independent career. He even went as far as to say that the "out-there and weird" nature of modern-day Danhausen is far more authentic than Donovan Danhausen, the name and character he used before dawning the face paint on the independent scene. According to Danhausen, even when he initially started incorporating makeup into his character, the tone was completely different from what it is today.

"I switched over to a horror-based character, like no nice part of it, just straight up horror movie," he said. "Eventually, I landed on the Pazuzu makeup from The Exorcist. Then I was like, 'Oh, this one is pretty cool, I'm gonna try to morph it, and make it my own thing.'" This decision resulted in the face paint style that Danhausen fans know and love today.