Bryan Danielson has made the unlikely admission that he enjoyed wrestling without fans in attendance.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced WWE to continue their weekly television shows and pay-per-views without the essential element of fans being in attendance. While they first used their Performance Center to hold all of their television shows, they eventually moved into the ThunderDome.
One wrestler who worked through the majority of the pandemic was Bryan Danielson. The American Dragon recently spoke on “The Sessions with Renee Paquette” about some of the matches he had in front of nobody and what it was like having the NXT crew substitute as fans during the uncertain period.
“I loved wrestling in front of no people. I specifically loved wrestling in the Performance Center with no noise. Because it was like woah, this is wild! [Renee mentions the 2 out of falls match with AJ Styles] So I’m kind of proud of that, but that’s not what I am into, because they had the NXT people there. They are not really cheering like a crowd would emotionally, they are just cheering because they need to cheer.”
“Then when it goes to commercial break, they stop and everybody just stops and sits down and we are like what are going to do next? But I love the Performance Center with no ThunderDome, just like me and Drew Gulak doing some wild stuff. I wrestled Claudio and we were just talking about that the other day, it was a lot of fun.”
The former WWE star also contributed to the creative process during the pandemic. When asked about his role, Danielson expressed his gratitude and said he enjoyed working with the writers in the company.
Bryan Danielson would leave WWE before fans were allowed back to arenas in 2021. The last match he wrestled in WWE during the pandemic was against Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship.
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