Various: Bryan Danielson Makes Surprise Appearance at ACTION Wrestling’s Co-Promoted DEAN~! 2 Event, Muhammad Hassan on His Dark Side of the Ring Appearance Being One of Best Decisions He Made, Indies/Misc.

May 25, 2025

Bryan Danielson Makes Surprise Appearance at ACTION Wrestling’s Co-Promoted DEAN~! 2 Event

Sarurday’s DEAN~! 2 co-promoted event for ACTION Wrestling and AEW/ROH at the Scottsdale Arena in Glendale, Arizona featured Bryan Danielson making a surprise appearance.

During the show, Danielson came out to the ring and paid tribute to Blue Panther and Hologram on the microphone. Danielson also hugged Panther in the ring as part of his tribute to him.

oh my god pic.twitter.com/7WVZ0Dhn4k
— dean/pidge ⭑.ᐟ (@pidgemz) May 25, 2025

Danielson did not engaged in any physical activity at the event.

Muhammad Hassan Comments on His Dark Side of the Ring Appearance Being One of Best Decisions Made for His Wrestling Career

This week’s upcoming season six finale episode of Dark Side of the Ring on May 27th on VICE TV will be based on former WWE wrestler Muhammad Hassan, real name Marc Julian Copani.

Fightful held a recent interview with Hassan. One of the topics discussed included Hassan’s thoughts about his upcoming episode of Dark Side of Wrestling and him being a fan of the series.

“I watched Dark Side of the Ring. I love Dark Side of the Ring. Like I’d watched every episode when I got the call from the producer. It was Chris who put that out into the universe, ‘Why don’t you do a Dark Side episode?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t want to do a Dark Side episode. It always ends tragically.’ Like, ‘Why would you wish that upon me?’ is what I said to him. Hearing them present this idea that they had for examining the controversial aspect of wrestling and then the life after wrestling was pretty appealing because it was different than anything I’d ever really seen on Dark Side, and you’re right.
They explore controversial events and situations and then controversial people, which typically end tragically. I was not into it at first. I really was like, ‘I have a very different life. I have a different career.’ The irony of being the most controversial wrestler that couldn’t even survive on television after the London bombings to now being the Director of Human Resources isn’t lost on me, but that comes with a lot of responsibility and really a lot of obligation to portray myself as a professional for the school district that I work for and for my family.”

Hassan also gave his thoughts about the Dark Side of the series producers doing a great job selling him on wanting to make an episode based on his time in WWE and him feeling that he made one of the best decisions for his wrestling career after watching a screener of it.

“So Dark Side really did a great job of selling me on the what-if storylines that it could be. Like, ‘We’re not gonna do this. We’re gonna do this. We’re not gonna focus on just the controversy.’ What it ultimately evolved into is, ‘We’re gonna focus on the human being behind the controversy and how that affected you, not only as a person, but your career and what you’ve done post wrestling. I was hooked after that, and the people over there are just all so friendly and so great. They’re just so accommodating, and it was such a fun day to go over. I worked with three guys, cameramen, two of the producers just kind of getting set up, and the interview was like six or seven hours. The thing I remember most from it was like the camera is literally right here in your face, even though the angle doesn’t really demonstrate that, because it looks like it’s a little bit more distant.
I remember just eventually feeling so comfortable and having that conversation that when I saw the screener, I sat there just looking at the TV for like 10 minutes—maybe not that long—but my wife’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ It was surreal to see that part of my life played out in story form and to be so proud of it. They did a great job. So it was definitely one of the better decisions I’ve made, probably second to doing the interview with you over 10 years ago.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

HOODSLAM recently announced that former TNA talent Su Yung will be making her official debut appearance for the company at their July 7th event in Oakland, California.

WrestleCon recently announced that Dan Spivey and WWE Hall of Famers Tony Atlas, Koko B. Ware, and Lex Luger will be making an appearance at their WrestleCon Destination Newark event on August 1-2 in Newark, New Jersey.

WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair recently announced on Twitter that a new line of Flair Spirits including Tequila, vodka and gin are coming soon.

As noted before, Indie Wrestling Hall of Famer and ECW legend Sabu, real name Terry Brunk, passed away last Sunday at the age of 61. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason why the official cause of death has yet to be released for Sabu is due to his ex-wife currently lives in Japan and she has not signed off on the documents allowing its public release. Meltzer reported that while Sabu had split up from his wife more than a decade ago, they were never legally divorced meaning she still holds legal rights over his passing. Meltzer also reported that the current belief is that Sabu had passed away at around 6:30 AM on the morning of May 18th in his apartment in Las Vegas.

New Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly drew a paid attendance of 2,027 for their May 9th Resurgence 2025 event in Ontario, CA, 1,000 for their May 10th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Chiba, 1,369 for their May 11th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Inanuma, 1,470 for their May 14th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Tokyo, 1,365 for their May 15th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Tokyo, 1,857 for their May 17th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Tokyo, 1,231 for their May 18th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Hachioje, 842 for their May 20th Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Gunma, and 967 for their May 22nd Best of the Super Juniors 2025 event in Osaka, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

All Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly drew a paid attendance of 512 for their May 10th Champion Carnival 2025 event in Sapporo, 625 for their May 11th Champion Carnival 2025 event in Sapporo, and 2,280 for their May 18th Champion Carnival 2025 Finals event in Tokyo, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

In a recent interview with The Ariel Helwani Show, Karrion Kross gave his thoughts about his interesting in working for Lucha Libre AAA again in the future. Kross stated “I would love that (return to AAA). Konnan has been telling me for a while he wants to get me back down there in some sort of capacity.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, co-host Matt Hardy gave his thoughts about how his brother Jeff was a big advocate of wanting to be honest and transparent in storyline for the reason for his abscense for TNA’s Under Siege 2025 event. Hardy stated “Yeah, Jeff was a big advocate of that too. He really wanted to be very transparent and just be straightforward. He’s like, ‘Oh, come on man’ as opposed to doing being injured like, ‘Let’s just be straightforward with it.’ I think Tommy Dreamer had a good point even about using it to get The Nemeths heat in what we were doing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling recently announced that “Speedball” Mike Bailey will be making an appearance for the company at their Resurrection event on July 5th in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Maple Leaf Pro also recently announced one new match for the card of their Resurrection event on July 5th in Montreal: