Newly-signed All Elite Wrestling star Bryan Danielson took part in a post-AEW All Out media scrum where he discussed several topics, including his decision to join the company, wanting to push his limits, his relationship with WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon and more.
On not feeling a spark at WrestleMania 37 and whether he felt any emotions tonight Bryan stated, “Yeah for sure, you know it was interesting, but for the first time in a really long time, Tony put me in a trailer, I was hiding in the trailer, so I had to go back to the trailer after and then, you know I talked to my wife and everything, I was sitting there and just kind of meditating after and you can just feel it, so many times we just like bypass cool things, but I kept sitting there. I don’t know how many of you meditate, I know it’s b******* mood stuff or whatever, but just feeling the sensation of it, it still resonated. That’s one of the very unique things about pro wrestling is that you go out there and you can feel. For the most part, most of my career, almost every time I’ve gone out there, I’ve really felt something and tonight, it was a feeling that wouldn’t stop until they came and got me out of the trailer, then you disconnect from it and you’re just like, oh where am I going.”
On when he made the decision to join AEW and his relationship with WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon, Bryan stated the following, “I heard something over the past week that one of the things that really turned Punk was the Brodie Lee show, it was also one of the things, I saw it and so many of us loved him so much and so we saw it and saw how special it was and we saw like, okay we’re going to stop what we’re normally doing, I thought that was really special to me, so that was when I really started kind of thinking about my contract coming up, but the final decision honestly was just like, I started thinking about things. I don’t know how many of you are married or have kids, but when you’re married and you have kids, your life becomes a little bit tame. I love it, but it’s a little bit tame, I need one part of my life that’s a little bit wild. WWE was so gracious with me as far as the offer that they gave me, they were going to let me go do some other stuff on the outside, but I hate to say this, Vince sometimes, he and I have a great relationship, I love him, I do, but sometimes he’s overprotective of me. I want to be able to push my limits, that’s one of the things that I love about this is like the physicality of what we do out there and being able to push my limits and being able to do that here in a safe manner is one of the things that really drew me here, then there’s also, I just think there’s an excitement, you know what I mean, there’s just an excitement. You see the crowd, I mean I think you all see it, probably were all out there and you felt it, you felt how excited people are about this product and it feels vibrant. Even just watching it through a TV screen in a trailer, I’m sitting there going, God this is awesome, I want to be a part of this, so that was it, although it was I don’t know, I really battled back-and-forth because there’s a lot of people there that I consider family, that actually are legitimately my family and you know, people that I love there, so it was a really tough decision.”