Before his title versus career match with AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland at Everything included This weekend, Bryan Danielson will be making the rounds in the media to promote the Sunday, August 25 PPV from London’s Wembley Stadium.
In an interview with Fightful, Danielson reminded us that his last contract expired on August 1st, meaning he is currently working without a contract:
“I don’t have a contract at the moment. Yeah, I’m just not under contract, that’s crazy.”
Doesn’t seem like a big risk for AEW though. Bryan says he doesn’t think he’s received any offers from other companies…but he can’t swear to it because he doesn’t check his phone often:
“I currently have 3,998 unread texts. I’m almost at 4,000. There are also a lot of missed calls. There might have been someone in there, but I would have to go through all the missed texts and look at them.”
However, he has spoken to AEW owner, president and chief creative officer Tony Khan. And while Bryan also confirmed that he will be undergoing neck surgery sometime in the next few months shortly after retiring from his full-time in-ring career, he also revealed that he plans to continue with AEW in the future:
“Tony and I have spoken. I always answer the phone when he calls… when I’m on the phone, I have to clarify this because he called me last night, but it was 9:30 p.m. Pacific time and I was already asleep.
“The first thing I need to do when I stop wrestling is get my neck fixed, which will probably require neck surgery sooner rather than later. So that will be my first order of business and then I’ll help AEW however I can. I love AEW so I want to help as much as I can and as much as they want my help, I’m willing to get involved.”
In another interview, this time with BBC Radio, Danielson said he was ready for the part of his career that takes place primarily outside the ring, even if it is immediately after Everything included.
“Yes, I’m very comfortable with it. If I wasn’t comfortable with it, we wouldn’t have done it, right? (laughs)
“But I also think – I’ve been wrestling for 25 years now. For me, it’s now or nothing as far as winning the AEW World Championship goes. I came in and said I’m going to bash people’s heads in and win the AEW World Championship. And I’ve bash a lot of people’s heads in, but I haven’t won a single title.”
The American Dragon then provided some statistics to back up the story of his title fight (AEW interviewer Alex Marvez told him he has lost his last 19 championship fights in WWE and AEW) before explaining how this retirement will be different from his last one:
“So I’ve come to terms with it. My life is just different now, right? When I was forced to end my career, I wasn’t ready. 2015 was kind of my last game, but in 2016 I had to end my career. At that point I was 35 years old and I just thought, this doesn’t feel right.
“I also didn’t have anything else to really focus on and give my attention to. And now I have something else. Now I have a wonderful family that I really enjoy spending time with and things like that. So, yeah, it’s a lot different when you’re doing it voluntarily and not being forced into it.”
