During a recent appearance on The Nikki & Brie Show, Bryan Danielson talked about his thoughts on retirement.
When Danielson challenges Swerve Strickland at AEW All In, the stipulation is that if he doesn’t win the title, he will never wrestle again. Danielson said it’s easier for him to imagine a future without wrestling. He also noted that he doesn’t want to miss this time in his children’s lives.
Danielson said:
“There’s this little part of our kids’ lives where they really want us there. Soon – and I see this with my friends and my sister and all that stuff – Birdie, who’s 7 now, will suddenly be a teenager and will have different things. Now she wants Daddy to be there all the time, and I want to be there. And besides, my body is broken. I’ll probably have neck surgery before the end of the year.”
“This pro wrestling thing has been incredible and I can’t really imagine my life without it for the last 25 years, but it’s a lot easier to imagine my future life without wrestling. I actually have a hard time imagining myself continuing with it, especially after the last year. I had herniated discs in my back, a torn labrum in my shoulder, then I broke my arm which required a rod and 9 screws, then I had two fractures in my orbital bone and now I just recently injured my neck really bad and that was in April. So it’s like all of those things. When I first started in AEW I thought ‘I’m invincible’ and then it turns out I might not be so invincible after all.”
Danielson qualified for the AEW World Title match at All In by winning the 2024 Men’s Owen Hart Cup. Leading up to the tournament finals, Danielson mentioned in several media interviews that he never wanted to win the AEW World Title. Our own Dave Meltzer mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio that Danielson made these statements to maintain the surprise of his Owen Hart Cup win.
“All those interviews that Danielson was giving about not wanting the world title and all that, it was just to make you think Hangman was going to win,” Meltzer said on the July 11 show.
“I think he wanted everyone to think it wasn’t going to be him, he wasn’t going to win the tournament, because otherwise people would have expected him to win the tournament. But because he kept telling people he wasn’t going to do it, everyone expected Page (to win), and that’s what he wanted to do.”
