Funny doesn’t make money? Ask Danhausen and the NY Knicks | Opinion
If Danhausen isn’t considered a mainstream star already, he will be very soon if the New York Knicks win the NBA championship for the first time since 1973.
Right now, at this very second, there are basketball fans who have become fans of Danhausen and are only lightly aware that he comes from the world of professional wrestling. He’s just seen as the funny face-painted guy who uncursed the Knicks, and also seems to like teeth.
A whole generation of sports fans are going to associate Danhausen with this Knicks team, and if they win just two more games, his star power will transcend the professional wrestling industry.
Could Danhausen become bigger than wrestling?
If the Knicks win the NBA Championship, the team and its fans will make an idol out of him. The possibilities of where his career goes from there are limitless.
Danhausen getting his own TV show on Netflix? Why not? Why not give it a try? Maybe he could do something similar to Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
Danhausen in movies and TV shows? I don’t see why not.
Danhausen making odd cameos at award shows and big pop culture events? I expect it to happen.
Danhausen’s character could fit into that rare group of celebrities who exist slightly outside the normal rules of fame. Someone like Elvira, Pee-wee Herman, or Weird Al Yankovic. The kind of person who can just pop up in places where other celebrities are and just them being there is funny.
Did AEW fumble Danhausen?
Danhausen’s success with the Knicks is going to lead many to say that AEW didn’t know what they had with him and fumbled it as a result.
I don’t think anyone can deny that’s true. Though performers having little success in one company only to find far more in another is not exactly a new phenomenon. Plenty of “fumbled” WWE stars have made themselves “undeniable” in different companies as well.
For whatever reason, the merchandise records that Danhausen broke on ProWrestlingTees.com didn’t translate into him getting television time while in AEW. Unless there was something else factoring into things backstage, AEW must have felt that his merch sales would not translate to television ratings, ticket sales, PPV buys or other forms of revenue for the company.
The point of this article is not to say that AEW fumbled the ball with Danhausen, but I don’t think mentioning that they perhaps could have made better use of a guy possibly on his way to mainstream superstardom is avoidable.
Why Danhausen’s Knicks connection could last forever
Maybe none of this happens. Maybe the Spurs win four out of the next five games and the Knicks don’t win the championship, and Danhausen’s role in all of this becomes a strange footnote in a heartbreaking playoff run for Knicks fans.
But if the Knicks do win, it’s hard to imagine this just going away.
Danhausen won’t just be the wrestler who became popular with Knicks fans. He’ll be the weird face-painted guy who uncursed the Knicks and became a strange part of their first NBA championship in more than half a century.
That is not just wrestling famous. That is something else entirely.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.