AEW hung onto the idea of Bryan Danielson wrestling at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view until the last minute, but when he wasn't cleared to wrestle, the company went out and found a mystery replacement for him. His injury was just the latest in a string that also cost CM Punk a match against Hiroshi Tanahashi in the main event of the evening.
Following NJPW's Dominion pay-per-view, Zack Sabre Jr. called out Danielson, which lead many fans to believe that a dream match between the two would be taking place at Forbidden Door. That happened after Bryan had already been out of action since the Double Or Nothing PPV, so audiences were hopeful that he'd be cleared to wrestle. Unfortunately, The American Dragon opened the go-home episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite, informing fans that he doesn't have the medical clearance needed to compete, but said that his stand-in at the event will be more than suitable. Tony Khan doubled down on those sentiments during a media call ahead of the event.
While Khan has never really been one to scale back expectations, he took two different opportunities during the hour-long call to speak about how special this debut will be. He indicated that Danielson's mystery substitute is a "very, very, very qualified replacement." He continued, stating that "there are very few people that people would want to see step into Bryan Danielson's shoes and wrestle Zack Sabre Jr. on Sunday night at Forbidden Door and fight against Chris Jericho and those sports entertainers on Wednesday night in the Blood and Guts. But there is one person out there we were able to get to come and I'm really excited for it."
The inflection in Khan's voice as he spoke was interesting. He stressed the difference between wrestling Sabre Jr. and fighting "those sports entertainers" as if this mystery replacement had a history of doing both. With speculation swirling that Danielson's substitute will be Cesaro or Johnny Gargano, this seems to indicate that it could be the former instead of the latter. Fans have to read between the lines a little bit here, but Cesaro's hard-hitting style would fit right in with the Blood And Guts match while he also has the technical skills needed to go toe-to-toe with Sabre Jr. He was widely regarded as the most underrated wrestler in the world for a long time, after all.
It's worth noting that Gargano will be in Chicago on June 26 for an autograph signing at The Chicago Card Show, but he wrote on Twitter that this was strictly a coincidence. He also noted that virtually no one would believe him, given the timing of Forbidden Door and his presence in The Windy City.
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