Fans Speculate Over Former WWE Stars Making AEW Debut At Forbidden Door

By Sai Mohan

As noted earlier, Bryan Danielson revealed on Wednesday's "Dynamite" that a mystery man will replace him in the match against Zack Sabre Jr. at Sunday's Forbidden Door pay-per-view, and also in next week's Blood & Guts match.

Before making the announcement, Danielson admitted that he's a "judgmental prick" with really high standards, and therefore has handpicked one of the greatest technical wrestlers in the world to go toe-to-toe with Sabre Jr. Bryan would then yell, "Who's the best technical wrestler in the world?!" until Sabre Jr. made his way onto the entrance ramp to staredown the American Dragon.

Danielson's announcement has fueled the rumor mill as to the identity of the mystery man possessing sound technical wrestling skills. Fans on social media have floated names such as Cesaro and Johnny Gargano, both of whom are currently free agents. Other names doing the rounds include indie veteran Chris Hero, NJPW star Katsuyori Shibata and Undisputed ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham.

It should be noted that Excalibur mentioned on commentary that the mystery man will be the newest member of the Blackpool Combat Club.

Gargano recently appeared on Sammy Guevara's vlog, where he teased a possible move to AEW. During their face-to-face meeting, Guevara suggested that a match between them "would be pretty badass," to which Gargano responded with, "I think someone's missing," alluding to his wife Candice LeRae.

Last month, the AEW on TV Twitter account accidentally mentioned that Gargano had made his AEW debut as Samoa Joe's mystery opponent when it was in fact another Johnny, Johnny Elite (FKA John Morrison), who showed up on "Dynamite" for a match.

In an interview with Your Story with Mike Wexler in April, Gargano confirmed he was still weighing his options on his next destination.

"I mean all my options are open right now, I am very open about that," Gargano said. "I don't know what I want to do yet. It's one of those things where I am kind of in a time period of my life where I am figuring that out. I am figuring out what my goal is, and what lasting legacy I want to leave. I do have a lot of unfulfilled things in WWE that I still want to accomplish.

"So, there is WWE, there's AEW, there's New Japan, there's doing a run on the indie scene. There are a lot of things that I am kind of debating and working on right now. I don't know when, and I don't where I am going to return. But, I promise you when I do you all will know."

Meanwhile, Cesaro is reportedly "laying low" and "taking time off for family reasons" since his WWE departure back in February. He recently trademarked the name CSRO, which could potentially be his post-WWE stage name.

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