Bryan Danielson has spoken out on his decision to leave WWE in 2021 and sign with AEW later that year.
Making his comeback in 2018 after being forced to retire 2 years earlier due to medical reasons, The American Dragon reigned as World Champion once more and was in the main event of WrestleMania 37. On April 30th, Danielson lost to Roman Reigns in a match where he was also banned from SmackDown as a result of the defeat.
While many assumed that this was part of a storyline and that Danielson would eventually make his way back to Raw, news broke that the former World Champion’s contract had expired and he had left the company.
Fast forward to All Out 2021 and Danielson capped off a night of surprises by becoming All Elite. Regularly competing in the promotion over the next 3 years, the former World Champion continued to perform at a high level and reigned as the World Champion.
Speaking with Oliver Browning of TalkSPORT, Danielson first spoke about how the mentality in All Elite Wrestling is different, noting that the non-offensive approach is similar to his own personality:
“We don’t, at least it seems like to me, we as a company don’t approach other companies in a warlike fashion, right? We don’t feel like we’re in a war with anybody,” Danielson said. “But that’s not the same as the other side. So we have to — we’re constantly kind of on the defense in that. I don’t know the right strategy. I like the way Tony Khan handles things, because that in my mind, it makes us the good guys, right?
“But I don’t know if at some point we need to go more on the offensive. I’ve had friends bring that up to me like, ‘Oh, you guys should attack.’ I’m like, wait a second. Like one, that’s not my personality. Two, that’s not Tony Khan’s personality. And I think that’s one of the things that drew me to AEW.”
“They Care About The Wrestlers”: Bryan Danielson On AEW
Continuing, Danielson also added that the Brodie Lee tribute show in 2020 was a major factor in his decision to leave WWE:
“We had a wrestler, Brodie Lee, who had passed away. They did this incredible tribute show. At that point, I was still with WWE. And the way that they did that show — Brodie was my friend — it touched something in me and in my mind. I was thinking like, ‘Oh, these are the good guys of professional wrestling’.
There’s going to be times where we make wrong, or bad decisions, that happens everywhere. But one of the things that I like to think about AEW is that we try — and we don’t market ourselves as this — to be good. Tony Khan never says it. He never says, ‘We’re the good guys in professional wrestling.’
“But that’s one of the things that I thought of when I was in WWE. I was like, ‘Oh, the people behind this, who are running this thing, they care about the wrestlers. They care about the fans, too.’ The one thing that I love about Tony is that he is a wrestling fan and he wants to produce a show for wrestling fans, or that wrestling fans will enjoy.”