Bryan Danielson, one of the greatest professional wrestlers in history, is winding down his career as a full-time wrestler. Hearing Danielson speak ahead of challenging Swerve Strickland for the AEW world championship at Saturday’s All In event in London, it’s evident his passion for wrestling runs as deep as ever, even as he faces down ending his career on his own terms.
Danielson’s is a journey that has spanned continents, decades and promotions of all sizes. Before the world knew Danielson’s name, the “Yes!” chant he popularized in WWE, or his current string of outstanding late-career matches in AEW, he was getting his start on the independent scene in his late teens and early 20s.
By 2000, Danielson was signed to a WWE developmental deal and hardcore wrestling fans in the know began hearing more and more about him under the ring name of American Dragon.
“Yeah, it’s interesting because I had drive and focus, but a drive and focus on what, right?” Danielson told CBS Sports. “My drive and my focus was never to be this. My drive and focus was just to be the best wrestler that I could. And I didn’t know what those limits were. And I didn’t have anything that implied to me that I would have the career that I have.
“There was nothing about me and nothing about the wrestling industry in, say, 2003 or 2004 or whatever it is … nothing about wrestling would tell me that my career would have gone how it went. So, yeah, it is a very interesting concept that the guy working Jersey All-Pro was who would be here in the main event of Wembley Stadium.”
Danielson’s rise from American Dragon to one of the best wrestlers in the world came quickly. He began to appear in more promotions throughout the United States as well as New Japan Pro Wrestling.
That was a stretch in which Danielson also became one of the cornerstones of Ring of Honor, which got its start in 2002. Danielson was in the main event of ROH’s debut show and suddenly it seemed as though every marquee independent wrestling show featured Danielson in a key spot.
While hardcore wrestling fans felt Danielson was too good to be denied reaching the highest levels of professional wrestling, Danielson’s desire was never to be under the bright lights of WWE.
“My goal wasn’t even to be in WWE,” Danielson said. “I signed a developmental deal when I was 18 years old and that’s how I started working with William Regal and all that kind of stuff. But they let me go in 2001, shortly after they had bought WCW. They had a bunch of cruiserweights who were very good and very experienced. They didn’t need guys like me.
“Then I got to go to Japan and I got to do those things. Honestly, that’s what I loved. It was only in 2008 and 2009 when I started racking up a decent number of concussions. I had been talking with Regal and he said, ‘Hey, it might just be best if you come here and you could at least get your house paid off or whatever it is.’
“But then the thing becomes, do they even want you?”
Even with the questions of whether WWE wanted him at that point and as injuries and bodily trauma were adding up, Danielson soldiered on.
Danielson’s relationship with wrestling was still motivated by being the best wrestler he could be and doing it in places that brought him personal satisfaction rather than the potential financial windfall that would come down the road if he was headlining WWE pay-per-views.
“When I was doing that [independent] stuff in like 2003, 2004, all the way through until probably towards the end of 2008, I was very satisfied just doing what I was doing. My desire has never been to be a millionaire, you know what I mean? It wasn’t that and has never been that. So it wasn’t money-driven. It was just like, OK, if I could get a full-time job with New Japan [I’d be happy].
“That kind of job where you’re on all the tours or even living there. The idea of living in Japan to me was this huge, like, ‘OK, if I can get it to where they want me full-time, yeah, I’ll just live in Japan or go to Australia or whatever it is in between tours.’ That sort of thing. So those were where my goals were at the time. You know, it wasn’t about getting on TV in the United States or anything like that.”
Danielson did eventually find his way to WWE where, after some fits and starts, he became a phenomenon, a WrestleMania headliner and a multi-time world champion. He told the story of taking a personality assessment given to many of WWE’s top talent at the time. Danielson claims to have scored “the lowest ambition score they’d ever seen and the lowest desire for power that you could ever have.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone in any field being able to build a career with an argument of being the best to ever do the job while holding such measurably low ambition. It’s a unique quality that sets Danielson apart in the infamously political and cutthroat world of wrestling.
Danielson’s drive to be the best wrestler he is capable of being is driven by a pure love of the art form and a belief that being the best he can be will make him the happiest he can be.
“I’ve always been content with things that make me happy, right? With doing things that make me happy versus saying, ‘OK, I did this thing and I made a lot of money,’ or saying, ‘I did this thing and everybody else thought it was successful,'” Danielson said. “I don’t gauge things by whether other people think it’s successful or not. I gauge it either internally or from what wrestling can be.
“When younger wrestlers come and ask me for any sort of mentoring, one of the things I really try to express to them is to just enjoy wrestling. There is the idea of getting better at wrestling and, yes, always try to get better at wrestling. But while you’re out there and when you come to the back, focus on the parts of wrestling that you enjoyed. What made you feel alive out there? That sort of thing. Because if you’re doing all of this just to be famous or just to make money, there’s easier ways to be famous.”
There have certainly been dark moments in Danielson’s journey. He was forced to retire from in-ring action in 2016 due to a history of concussions.
While that retirement felt like the end of his journey was forced upon him, Danielson identified the time around a neck surgery in 2014 as maybe the darkest time in his relationship with wrestling.
“The big one for me was actually after WrestleMania 30,” Danielson said. “I main event WrestleMania and my neck at that point was really bad. We knew it was bad. I ended up having to get surgery a little less than two months later. WrestleMania was on a Sunday, I get married to my wife (WWE Hall of Famer Brie Bella) on Friday. We do our honeymoon in Hawaii and a little over a week after we get married, my dad unexpectedly dies.
“I thought I’d be able to do this thing that I love where I go all around the world and I travel. And yeah, ‘I’m sorry, dad. I can’t make it this time. I can’t do it this time. But when I’m done doing this, I’ll be able to go back and we’ll be able to go do all those things.’ And then there’s just this realization that you just can’t ever do those things you put off because you’re chasing your dreams or chasing this career or whatever it is. I never got to do those things.
“And there was and then shortly after that, I had to get neck surgery and then Brie was on the road. I was just at home by myself, like and it really felt like, man, there was a time in like 2008, 2009, where I’d had multiple concussions, all that kind of stuff. And I was thinking like, you know, it might be time for me to just be done. … It was the lowest I ever felt about wrestling in the sense of like, I shouldn’t be doing this.”
Danielson returned from neck surgery but it wasn’t too long before the concussions caught up to him and forced him into retirement. Against all odds, Danielson was eventually medically cleared to wrestle again, making a return to the WWE ring in 2018.
After more successful years under wrestling’s biggest spotlight, Danielson’s contract expired. Rather than remain in WWE, he sought out new opportunities and signed with All Elite Wrestling.
For fans who have followed Danielson’s entire career, his run in AEW has brought back the feelings of seeing him on the independent scene in the 2000s when he was at his most creatively free and with his full arsenal of in-ring skills on display.
“I really, really love it,” Danielson said of his experience at AEW. “I mean, there are multiple ways to do professional wrestling. You can go back to the territory days and all the territories had different styles. You go to England, that style is different from Mexico, and that style is different from Japan, and that style is different from Memphis, which is different from St. Louis. Memphis and St. Louis aren’t even that far apart. And Dallas, you know, you have all these different ways that they wrestle, or how they tell stories and they’re all different.
“I think a lot of people have their favorite style, both fans and wrestlers. And my favorite style is the Japanese style where it’s presented mostly as a sport. And so it’s OK if somebody didn’t steal my dog before we wrestle, right? AEW has been, and I don’t think it’s really close, the most fun I’ve had in my entire career in the sense of doing this thing that I love the way that I love to do it. It’s just been a blessing.”
As he winds down his career as a full-time wrestler, Danielson says he loves wrestling more than ever before.
In addition to the gratitude that, unlike his first retirement, the choice of when and how he steps away is in his hands, Danielson says he can’t lose the sense of “mystery and wonder” he has always held for wrestling.
“It’s mostly a gratitude for wrestling,” Danielson said of his feelings toward wrestling ahead of All In. “For it existing, right? People around me say things like, ‘Wrestling has always been around and it will always exist.’ And I’m of the opinion that, well, it hasn’t always existed and it won’t always exist. Real wrestling, like collegiate Olympic wrestling has always existed in some forms. You know, people want to grapple or whatever it is. But the idea of the combination of athletics and theater hasn’t always existed, and there’s no guarantee that it will always exist. And I’m just very grateful that I got to spend this time doing this.
“I love being a part of it. I love being around fans. I love all of it. But I look at it with this almost this mystery and wonder that I even got to be a part of these things that just seem so far beyond me. How did this even happen? How did I get here? It doesn’t make sense. Yeah, here’s just a bit of just a bit of mystery and wonder. And that’s and that’s how I view it.
“And I think that I’ve always viewed wrestling with a little bit of mystery and wonder as far as my place in it. And even the fact that it exists is just like this incredibly magical, whimsical thing that appeals directly to who and how I am as a person.”
https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/bryan-danielson-grateful-for-the-journey-pro-wrestling-has-taken-him-on-how-did-this-even-happen/
