Bryan Danielson on He Doesn’t Believe His Body Can No Longer Meet AEW’s In-Ring Expectations & “Certain People In WWE Don’t Want AEW To Exist”

The Kairouz Bros held a recent interview with Bryan Danielson. One of the topics discussed included Danielson’s thoughts about his belief that his body can no longer meet AEW’s in-ring expectations for a potential future match.

“Actually, from a wrestling perspective, it seems to be more fun to go do an indie show in front of 200 people or something like that. That doesn’t say anything about AEW. It’s just that the expectations for me would be so much less, in the sense that I don’t feel like my body can do what I would be expected to do in AEW, and that’s one of the great things about going to AEW shows, is that there’s so much. It’s action-packed, it’s hard-hitting, it’s great, but I don’t feel confident that I’m able to perform at that level anymore.”

In a separate recent interview with the Ned & Josh podcast, Danielson also gave his thoughts about the potential of AEW and WWE working together in the future.

“You never say never. In the current climate, my answer would have to be no. It almost seems, and this is just my perception. I don’t want to put this on anybody because I’ve never talked to anybody about this. It almost seems like they would like us to go out of business.”

Danielson also gave his thoughts about WWE’s counter-programming efforts against AEW shows of late and his belief that certain people within WWE do not want AEW exist at all that is not the same view shared by most of their wrestlers.

“That’s not my game. I don’t worry about those kinds of things. There is (that saying), ‘Grant me the serenity to change the things that I can, accept the things that I can’t change, and the ability to know the difference between the two.’ We can only do on our end what we can, and they’re going to do what they do. I’m not saying this in a negative way. I was in WWE for 12 years. This is the way they’ve operated since 1984, as far as seeing a competitor. There is nothing AEW can do to stop WWE from making over a billion dollars a year. They have these TV rights deals, they have this incredible back office where they are great at making deals with Netflix. There is nothing anybody can do, nobody can stop them from making billions of dollars a year. I would love to know, obviously, I know people in WWE who are great people. I don’t even like framing this in the terms of, ‘That’s bad.’ What is your decision-making process? What’s the process like of wanting us to not be there or not exist?

It gives you options. AEW focuses on different things than WWE does. Having different wrestling companies allows different types of entertainment. Not only is it good for the fans, it’s super important for the wrestlers. Having two companies where you can make a living is really good for the wrestlers and production people in wrestling. I would think most wrestlers in WWE want AEW to keep existing because it’s good for them, but certain people there obviously don’t want us to exist. I’m not saying anything bad about them. I’m just saying, I’m curious as to why they desire that.

There is going to be incredible talent in WWE, who WWE misses on, and they succeed in AEW. Great examples of that are Toni Storm and Swerve Strickland. There is going to be talents who AEW misses on, and they will succeed very well in WWE. It’s good for both.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2