Bryan Danielson on Being “Infinitely More Content” In His Retirement Now Compared To 2016 & Potential Future In-Ring Return Being “It Can’t Be At The Scale I Did It Before”

Wide World of Sports held a recent interview with Bryan Danielson. One of the topics discussed included Danielson’s thoughts about how he feels about his current retirement from full-time wrestling compared to his first retirement in 2016 due to neck issues.

“I feel infinitely more content, honestly, my life has changed and it’s different when it’s your own decision as opposed to when you’re not allowed to do this thing that you love anymore.

Not great, the travel isn’t great for my neck, that’s one of the things that has started to become hard. There are days that are good, but there are days that are less good. I would mostly frame it that even though I’m in physical discomfort, I’m pretty happy.”

Danielson also gave his thoughts about if he had considered retiring at Wembley Stadium at All In 2024 instead of at WrestleDream 2024.

“Yeah 100 per cent – that was definitely a thought that I had, one of the things that I thought was that regardless of if I win or lose this match, it was being able to celebrate the end of my career with my family. If I win, great, I celebrate the title win with my family. If I lose, celebrate this incredible journey that I have been on, with my family, in the middle of the ring. Both things would have been great and the idea is that if it was going to be my last match, you want to give everything you have and don’t leave anything on the table. None of us necessarily deserve any of these things, I haven’t done anything to deserve 50,000 people in a stadium and my family being able to be there and main eventing the show … that’s how I look back on it, from a gratitude perspective.”

Danielson also gave his thoughts about the potential of him making an in-ring return in the future and how it would have to be different in scale than what he was doing before.

“It’s interesting, because you never say never – but there’s not an appeal to me to go out there and do that type of match that I did with Swerve Strickland. Sure, there’s the part when I’m watching it, I get super excited and think I would love to get back in there – but then it’s like, what are you talking about? My body physically can’t do some of those things anymore. If I’m going to do it, it can’t be at the scale that I did it before. If I tried to do some of the things I did in my last year with AEW right now, I don’t think I’d be able to go back and hold my kids. Anything that I would do moving forward has to be with that in mind, because that is now my number one priority. Stay healthy, be at home and play with my kids and coach my son’s tee-ball team.”