The Owen Hart Tournament finally has its draw set. Rey Fenix, Kyle O’Reilly, Jeff Hardy, Darby Allin, Adam Cole, Dax Hardwood, and Samoa Joe are all in, making the cut through a series of qualifying matches. AEW Dynamite revealed the brackets but also the surprise of a “Joker” entrant in the tournament. AEW has a track record of excellent surprise additions to big matches and looking at the current pool of wrestling free agents, the name that jumps off the page is Cesaro.
Wrestling fans will spend hours creating a list of wrestlers WWE “missed” on over the years. The debate about who are actually misses is for another night, but there is one name that nearly everyone would agree on – Cesaro. The “Swiss Superman” is one individual that professional wrestling fans wanted to see more from in the WWE.
The “more” never happened – which didn’t surprise a lot of people familiar with WWE’s product. Cesaro picked up titles, eight in total during his time in the WWE. But he never reached the pinnacle of being a singles champion. The closest he came was toward the end of his time in the company. He and Seth Rollins tore down the house at WrestleMania 37, finally giving Cesaro a singles victory at the biggest show of the year. Still, March would come and Cesaro quietly made his exit from the company, another name to the growing list of free agents that exploded at the start of 2020.
And now here we are. All Elite Wrestling is promoting another surprise on top of a list of surprises that have included signing Toni Storm, Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland, buying Ring of Honor, and announcing a super card with New Japan Pro Wrestling. While some fans complain of “too many” surprises, no one would be mad at AEW adding Cesaro to a stacked roster. Especially if he’s booked like the top performer, he’s shown he can be when given the opportunity.
While there are other names out there, looking at you Johnny Gargano, Cesaro would be the perfect name to walk through that curtain and take on Samoa Joe. Joe and Cesaro have a history together, including Joe knocking Cesaro out of the 2019 King of the Ring tournament – another tournament with close ties to the Hart Family. But even before their time together in WWE, Cesaro and Joe battled in Ring of Honor, the same ROH that boasts Joe as the television champion. Cesaro versus Joe for the TV championship is a perfect rivalry to get AEW’s fanbase into that brand, whatever the planned relaunch looks like.
All Elite Wrestling is all about its surprises and another one is coming during the Owen Hart Cup. When the Joker appears, Tony Khan needs to give his fans Cesaro. It would be the perfect name to add to this budding roster and now is the time to do it.