After recording what he already considers the greatest wrestling moment of his career at All In, defeating Swerve Strickland to become the new AEW World Champion, Bryan Danielson was asked about his future, his dream opponents, and whether or not he still plans to retire by the end of the 2024 calendar year.
While the “American Dragon” didn't have nearly as many answers as some fans may have liked, one topic he was eager to talk about was having the ability to experience this moment alongside his family, Brie Garcia, son Buddy, and daughter Birdie, who accompanied Danielson to the post-show media scrum to discuss his in-ring future.
“Uh yeah, I mean, it's such a different feeling from being forced to retire and choosing to retire. One of the things that was- that is really cool about this moment. So, my daughter and I were just out there in the hallway, and she goes, ‘Daddy, you're the best wrestler in the world.' And I said, ‘Sweet Girl, that's not entirely true. There's a lot of great wrestlers,' and she goes, ‘No, you're the best!'” Danielson revealed.
“And the idea, and I asked her, I said, ‘Well, then why is Daddy stopping wrestling?' And she said, ‘Because you love me.' And to… I want my kids to know that I could keep doing this for a much longer period of time at a very high level. But now it's time for me to go home and be with them. Like that's um, Sweet Girl, I love you, and Buddy- I love you and Buddy and Momma more than anything in the whole world, including wrestling in front of 50,000 people.”
Asking for someone to send a question Birdie's way, Dave Meltzer decided to ask Danielson's daughter how she liked London and if she would like to go on vacation to either Japan or Australia for massive AEW shows her father could theoretically work next year. While she didn't take the bait – a true professional already – it's clear Danielson is thinking about the end, and on Dynamite this coming Wednesday, his comments could define what little time he has left as a full-time pro.
Birdie didn't want Bryan Danielson to win at All In
In the lead-up to All In, Bryan Danielson was openly excited about getting to wrestle in front of his family for the first time ever but did tell The BBC Radio that his family wasn't universally on his side heading into Wembley, with Birdie specifically wanting to see her father lose so he would be forced to retire from the sport once and for all.
“Yeah, it’ll be the first time my son’s ever seen me wrestle live. My daughter got to see me wrestle live at WrestleMania 35, but she was two years old, and she doesn’t remember. It’s really exciting. It’s exciting for our family. My wife will be there, my kids will be there. My son, he hopes I win, but he also wants to see me get beat up a little bit,” Danielson told The BBC Radio via Fightful.
“My daughter doesn’t want to see me get beat up, but she hopes I lose so that I can come home and just be a dad [laughs]. The big shift in my daughter came last year when I broke my arm. I wasn’t able to do All In last year because I had broken my arm two months before. That whole process, the first time she’d really seen Daddy hurt, and she did not like that. Shortly after that I came back, I was back for like six weeks, and I had two fractures in my orbital bone and this stuff. She’s like, not only is Daddy away from home, he’s having these really weird, horrific injuries [laughs], so yeah. It’s been difficult for her as a child to see that kind of happen to her dad. But she’s really looking forward to it.”
After securing the win at All In, Danielson's career is alive and well, with plenty more big, brutal, likely bloody matches on the books over the next few months as he fights through the best stars AEW – and beyond – during this championship reign. While everyone in the Danielson family may not be excited about that sort of workload, in the end, if this is truly the “Final Countdown” for the “American Dragon,” why not go all in in the pursuit of greatness so he can rest on those laurels forever as he eases into semi-retirement?
Follow Us
Subscribe
