In a surprising move, WWE has allowed three wrestlers from rival company AEW to appear on its weekly series Raw. Monday’s night’s Raw episode is dedicated to John Cena, who is celebrating 20 years with WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). In addition to an appearance by Cena later in the show, there are also numerous video messages from wrestling legends to Cena being played. In addition to WWE employees like Triple H and Shawn Michaels, two AEW (All Elite Wrestling) personalities, Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson (known as Daniel Bryan in WWE) and Paul Wight (a.k.a. Big Show in WWE and The Giant in WCW) appeared in recorded messages.
It is unclear when the messages were recorded, but, being as Jericho hasn’t been in WWE since 2018, it’s likely they were done very recently and not in 2021 before Danielson and Wight’s exits. WWE also notably did not use their real names and opted to use the copyrighted ring names they performed under while with the company. However, it might have just been a gesture of goodwill between the rival operations. AEW might have been fine with the trio paying tribute to their longtime colleague.
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Crossovers like this are rare, but not totally unprecedented. WWE has collaborated with IMPACT Wrestling in recent months, even allowing Mickie James to appear in the Royal Rumble match and wear the company’s championship on-screen. AJ Styles also recently appeared in a Slammiversary video package. AEW has been very open to collaborating with other promotions in the past, going as far as putting on an event with NJPW (New Japan Pro-Wrestling) this past Sunday, which was called “Forbidden Door,” a reference to the typical boundaries present between wrestling operations. Jericho even appeared on a 2021 episode of WWE’s “Stone Cold” Steve Austin-hosted talk show Broken Skull Sessions.
WWE fans were thrilled to see two familiar faces they did not expect to see on Raw or SmackDown any time soon. In the moments after the videos aired, wrestling fans took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the WWE-AEW crossover. Scroll on to read their thoughts.
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“Was not expecting WWE to have gotten Big Show [and] Daniel Bryan to do a video for John.The real forbidden door,” one fan wrote.
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“So f—ing awesome,” a second Twitter user wrote. “Happy to see that Daniel Bryan isn’t dead in WWE’s eyes.”
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“Awesome to see Daniel Bryan and Big Show in this segment,” a third viewer wrote. “Important people in Cena’s history and just great to see an agreement between WWE and AEW to get these guys rightfully in here.”
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“THE FORBIDDEN DOOR HAS BEEN OPENED,” a fourth wrote. A fifth added, “Pretty neat to see guys like Big Show and Daniel Bryan from AEW with video messages to honor John Cena on #WWERaw.”
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“WWE having AEW stars Bryan Danielson and Paul Wight send videos in for John Cena’s 20th Anniversary is f—ing fantastic,” another person tweeted. Yet another wrote, “Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson and Big Show/Paul Wight sending video messages for John Cena was a really nice detail. So cool.”
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Another fan summed it up best, writing, “John Cena was the key to the forbidden door tonight.”
