Bryan Danielson (@bryandanielson) is a professional wrestler and announcer currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Houston, TX to discuss his new role on AEW commentary, if he has retired from the ring, why he left WWE to sign with AEW, the segment that got hijacked by fans, the YES Movement, losing to Sheamus in 18 seconds, winning in the main event of WrestleMania 30, if a Brie Bella return is possible, and more! 

On making the move to commentary:

“It’s been interesting because I wasn’t anticipating being a commentator. So I was at home, and then they asked me to come in because Taz was getting shoulder surgery, and to come and help out a little bit. But traveling has been difficult for me. That’s one of the things I didn’t expect, because I’ve traveled my entire adult life. It’s no big deal. But with my neck as bad as it is, all of a sudden, it was almost, gosh. It was like eight or nine months where I was only traveling maybe once a month. I’d go to the pay-per-views and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, the weekly travel has been a lot, and it’s just been made sleeping hard and that sort of thing.”

Is it the sitting on the plane the whole time?

“It’s also just lugging luggage around. So I typically just have a carry-on in a backpack, or whatever it is. But then it’s like being uncomfortable in the chair. I’ve made some adjustments, so I have a cervical pillow now that I travel with me, because for a while I was just sleeping with one of those hand towels underneath my neck, just so it’s not being pushed up or anything like that. But it’s impossible. I live on the West Coast, and then I also live an hour and a half to two hours from the airport, so it’s impossible for all these cross-country flights to stay in good posture the whole time, that kind of stuff. And then, heaven forbid, I fall asleep and I do this, and then I wake up like, oh no, I can’t feel my hand.”

On preparing for commentary as opposed to preparing for wrestling:

“It’s way different. From a performer’s perspective, I really just need to know what my match is, what they’d like for a finish, how much time you’ve got, and then it’s like, okay. Then you talk with your opponent, whatever it is, and then it’s the physical preparation. I would take 30 to 45 minutes to warm up for a match. I learned that from Randy Orton. Randy Orton was the best guy at warming up in WWE. He would do all these things, and if he had to do something on short notice, he’d get pissed. He’s like, ‘I don’t have time to do my shoulder routine’, or whatever. Just think of how many matches Randy’s done. His entire career has been in WWE, and during that time where they’re doing tons of live events every year and all that kind of stuff, so his body’s been through a lot. So he prepared it, and I would see it, and I had my own 10 to 15 minute warm-up. But then as I’ve got older, it became much more like, Okay, I need 30 to 45 minutes to warm up. So yeah. But now from a commentator perspective, I tend to go around and talk to people about their matches. I tend to be in Tony’s office trying to understand what the main story is that we’re trying to tell throughout a match, or whatever it is, and then I write a bunch of notes. This is the thing, with most things, you write a bunch of notes, most of them you don’t ever use. But there have been times where I’ve sat there and Excalibur asked me a question, and I just go like this [blank face]. So I found out I was doing full-time commentary while I was doing a media tour of Australia, I found out it was like, ‘Okay, starting this Wednesday…’ And I was like, Oh no, I have to get from Brisbane, Australia all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then I have to do commentary and all this kind of stuff. I was so jet lagged and tired when I got [there], there were a couple times during that, obviously Taz and Excalibur carried the bulk of the thing. There was one time Excalibur asked me a question, and I just went like this. I didn’t even say, ‘Er?’ And then Excalibur just goes, ‘Well, Taz?’ But it’s been good and fun. Commentary is a skill, so it’s something that you have to learn. I’ve been really lucky and grateful to have Taz and Excalibur and then Tony. I asked Tony Schiavone when he’s not busy backstage, and he’s super busy, and said, Can you give me some tips? Because it’s not something that I’m naturally good at.” 

On his neck issues:

“So I have degeneration from C1 all the way down to T2. [Your entire neck?] Yeah. So it’s like I’m on the cusp of needing surgery. It’s this weird line. I’d like to avoid surgery as much as possible. So my last neck surgery, I never fully recovered from it in the sense of getting back the strength gains and the mobility and all that sort of thing. So I’d really like to avoid it as much as possible, especially because my son is a menace. I had a broken arm, you have a big cast, I’m in a sling. I was like, ‘Buddy, you can’t touch daddy’s arm.’ And he’s jumping on my arm and all this kind of stuff. And I’m just like, Oh no, if I get neck surgery, it’s not like you wear a neck brace, not like you walk around in a neck brace. He’s pure boy. No matter how many times Brie tells him, and I tell him, but not as forcefully as Brie does, but Brie is, like, ‘Get off of daddy’s neck!’ And he just can’t not do it. It’s just like a boy thing. Our daughter is super good about it, but he’s all boy.”

Are you retired from the ring?

“I hate the R word because I was forced to retire before. So I never consider myself fully retired. This is how I think, and this is how a lot of wrestlers think, Well, I think I could do this in this situation, if needed, or called upon, or whatever it is. But effectively for the Bryan Danielson that I used to be, yeah, that guy doesn’t exist anymore.”

Do you want to go back if you can’t be that Bryan Danielson?

“I would love to, but not on TV. So, for example, I spent a large portion of my early career doing Butlins shows in the UK, because I was very bad at performing and being entertaining. William Regal hooked me up with Brian Dixon. We’d go over and do these Butlins holiday camps. So you pay $500 for a weekend, and your whole family can go. It includes food. It includes entertainment. So you see magicians, you see musicians, you can go to a dance hall, and oh, in the afternoon, there’s wrestling. So these people aren’t wrestling fans. They just want to be entertained. You know what I mean? So William Regal had me go over there, because although I naturally picked up the wrestling aspect of it very quickly, I did not pick up the entertainment aspect very quickly. So I spent a lot of time, and I learned to love it. I’d sing the American National Anthem, very poorly, and forget the words. There would be times where I’d be like, Okay, how many times can I accidentally hit myself in the crotch and all these sorts of things. We were doing it six, seven days a week, every week. The first time I went was 2003 and I was there for six months, and in the last 15 days I was there, I wrestled 21 matches. So you kind of have to with this kind of schedule, and you’re doing long drives every day and all that kind of stuff. With that kind of schedule, you had to be more entertaining. That’s what Regal said. He said that stuff saved me when I was hurt. When you look at William Regal’s career, I remember all the great wrestling matches. But what I think a lot of fans remember is his comedy skits backstage and how funny he was. Then, if you look at his ring stuff, when he was doing a lot of flexing and then pushing his bicep up and all that kind of stuff. But that’s all stuff that you learn from doing these holiday camps versus, at the time, I was doing a lot of independent wrestling that was very much geared towards having great matches, right? So yeah, I think I could go have fun matches and have fun doing the fun matches. But then I don’t think that’s the kind of wrestling fans would want to pay to see Bryan Danielson do.”

On his first WWE contract:

“I got signed in February of 2000 and then got let go in June or July of 2001. I think my career, and I think my life was better because I got fired then. But that’s all hindsight, at your time, it was just like I thought it was the richest man alive. At first they hired us at $500 a week, which is $26,000 a year. I thought it was so rich, because I grew up below the poverty line, and I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re just gonna give me $500 every week to wrestle? This is unbelievable!’ So we were in San Antonio when they first gave us the deal. Then we moved to Memphis, and they paid us $750 a week. And I’m like, this is the most money. I can’t even imagine having this much money. What is this? Then they fired me, and it’s like, oh no, but then they pay you for 90 days after that and I’m like, Oh, wow, this is just free money. But it was weird because then I had to start building a name on the independent scene, and then you’re going back to the idea of like, okay. There was this great company called ECCW. I’m pretty sure, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it stood for Extremely Canadian Championship Wrestling. But they would do like 150 shows a year, they were based out of Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia. So I moved back home, lived with my mom, started going to community college, worked two jobs, and then I’d go up on the weekends, and they do like three shows every weekend, and so I’d go up and I do those shows, and they’d pay me $75 Canadian, which at the time was like $45 American, and it did not include my gas money. So by the time I was paid, I was barely breaking even, or whatever it is. But the time making $750 a week allowed me to have that kind of savings. So it wasn’t a bad gig.”

On being The Miz’s rookie:

“I thought it was great, because what you want in WWE is some sort of story. So this is one of the things that I had a hard time with. When they signed me, I had longer hair and a little bit more of a wilder look. I liked that look, but they said, Okay, you’re gonna do this thing with The Miz. You’re gonna be a rookie. So I really without anybody asking me to, and maybe that’s one of the things that I should have said was, ‘Hey, how much are we going to play [into this?]’ The reality was they didn’t put much thought into that show at all. So it was like, looking back on it, it’s like that was their main priority was they’d film SmackDown on Tuesdays. Their main priority was SmackDown, then they just threw NXT together before that. But I thought this is, and it was, a huge opportunity to be on TV. So what I did was cut my hair more to look more generic. I tried to look as generic as possible with the idea, and me and Miz were collaborating on this stuff. Of some ideas, Miz was great about pitching ideas to the writers and all that kind of stuff about all these things of, okay, I can’t learn wrestling from Miz, but he’s going to teach me to be a Superstar, and me being frustrated like, ‘That’s not important. The only thing that’s important is the wrestling.’ That kind of thing that people think that I actually think, or that people think he would actually think, this could be a really good TV dynamic, and we both thought that, and then none of it ever happened. So then I just looked like a nerd for no reason. Not to say that I’m not a nerd. I’m just saying that I went out of my way to look less.” 

Was your passion for wrestling the reason you signed with AEW?

“Yeah. Also the idea of wanting to try something new, I always kind of wanted to push myself. I knew it was probably the last wrestling contract I’d ever sign. I had watched Cody wrestle Penta, and I used to ride with Cody. They’re both standing on the top and Cody did this top rope Frankensteiner I was like is that what you have to do? Part of it is scary, and part of it is intriguing, like, Oh, can I do this? I used to be able to do this style. Can I still do this style? The style that I gravitate towards is a more athletic, sports-based style, so I wanted to see that. There was also the idea at the time, the pandemic was just kind of ending, and we’re starting to do live shows again. I didn’t know if WWE was going to start doing the live events and stuff again, because at that point we had two kids, and I was like, I don’t want to do that schedule anymore. At AEW, it’s just Wednesdays. At the time, it was just Wednesdays. And I was like, that was a very appealing schedule to me, for my family. And then I also wanted to see if my body could still do some of these things. Some of it could, and some of it couldn’t. You learn that the hard way.” 

On coming back from retirement:

“When I came back in 2018, it was really weird. Because I was trained by Shawn Michaels, he told the whole class, The day that you stop being nervous before you go out there is the day that you need to retire, right? When I came back from being forced to retire, I thought that first match I’d be nervous, and I wasn’t. I was just happy, and I never really got nervous before a match again. There was one match that I was nervous for, and that was the match I had with Okada at Forbidden Door in 2023. The only reason why I was nervous is because it was a five-hour show, we were on last and we had to follow Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. I watched that match and I was like, Oh no. Then there’s still two more matches, and then me and Okada have to go out there. Then I was just stressed, and I was like, ah, but that’s the only time I remember being nervous before a match.”

What did WWE say was the creative for the Sheamus match at WrestleMania?

“What they said is, it’s one move. So yeah, that was the direction.” 

Did you ask why?

“No. I wasn’t at that point in my career. Also, I’ve never been somebody who’s been like, ‘Wait a second, why would you beat me in 18 seconds?’ Or ‘Why would you beat me with just one move?’ Or whatever it was. It’s like, okay, that’s the creative direction. I’m going to do the best that I can with it. I find that a lot of people put up stinks about a lot of things, or whatever it is, but I think, Okay, if you have an idea, it’s like well what if we do this? ‘Nope, we want to do that.’ I mean, you can put up a little resistance if you really don’t like something, but then if this is what the boss wants, you’re better off to do your absolute best at what the boss wants, and then try to get over from that. I think a great example in AEW is Swerve Strickland. He came in and he lost a lot of matches, but it was always like, ‘Yeah Tony, whatever you need. I’ll go out there and do it.’ Then now look at him. He’s main evented pay-per-views. He’s a world champion. He’s fantastic. There will be people who will take the other idea of, oh, I don’t want to do that, or I don’t even want to lose, or this or that, or whatever. Man, it’s not real [laughs]. I mean, there’s a couple guys in wrestling who would do well in MMA, there’s a couple, not many [laughs]. So it’s like, okay. I mean, if you want to win every match, you can go try MMA. You could even just try out the best guy at the local gym here in Houston in your weight class and see how it goes. Not to say that guys in wrestling couldn’t do it. It’s just we haven’t spent time training together. But yeah, I’ve always been a little bit perplexed by some of that kind of stuff.”

On fans hijacking and winning Money in the Bank: 

“But even in the sense of like, then when Batista won that Royal Rumble. I feel bad for Batista, because he worked hard to come back and all that kind of stuff. You do that with Batista now, he gets a great reaction, or any other year. I don’t think it was necessarily me. It was okay. The crowd had gotten behind a Dolph Ziggler, the crowd had gotten behind a Kofi Kingston, and they got up to a certain level, and then they were during that era, it was like, okay, then they would always kind of be pushed back down, or whatever it is. I think fans were starting to get upset by it. Even Punk, me and Punk had wrestled a match on a pay-per-view, must have been 2012 for the title. We were in the middle of the show, and the main event was John Laurinaitis and John Cena. I think the fans were ready for something new, or whatever it is. I mean, that’s just time and place, there’s a lot of my career that’s been like that. I’m of the firm belief that you could have [anyone]. I was in a very fortunate position, even winning the title. I wasn’t even supposed to. I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. The thing that whole led to me Yes-ing was I had won the Money in the Bank, and the only reason I won the Money in the Bank is because they had two Money in the Banks. They had one for Raw and one for SmackDown. They knew for sure they wanted Alberto Del Rio to win the Raw one. The SmackDown one, they thought they wanted Wade, Barrett, Cody Rhodes or me on the day of the show, they all decided it was me because they didn’t want a bad guy to win the Money in the Bank on the SmackDown side, because they had a bad guy winning it on the Raw side. But the most important thing was the Alberto Del Rio thing. But then they gave me the Money in the Bank, and they’re like, oh no. Now Daniel Bryan has the Money in the Bank, and nobody at that point had cashed in and lost. And so, you know, we did a couple things with it for a couple weeks, and then it was off TV for like six weeks, or whatever it is. Then they inserted me in a story with Big Show and Mark Henry, which got me on TV or whatever it is. But it was great. It put me in a story, but then Mark Henry got hurt. This was at the TLC pay per view in 2011. Mark Henry gets hurt. I wasn’t scheduled to be at the pay-per-view. I had a Walmart signing that same day in Baltimore with Kelly Kelly, and came over to the building because Brie was there; I think Brie had a match on the show. So I was there, and then Vince found out that I was there, and then Daniel Bryan’s here, and then it’s like, oh! Because I had been involved in this thing with Mark Henry and Big Show. Okay, well Mark Henry’s hurt, so they had to do like a real smoke and mirrors type chair match, and then Mark gets mad at Big Show. And then, just because I happened to be there, it’ll be shocking that Daniel Bryan comes in and cashes in on Big Show. So even that was just a circumstance. If I hadn’t been booked, if Walmart hadn’t asked to have two WWE wrestlers sign at that on that particular day, that whole thing would have never happened. And Vince’s direction to me was go out there and celebrate like you just won the Super Bowl. Then that’s how the yes thing happened. A lot of these are just circumstances. If they had let me at WrestleMania go out there and wrestle Sheamus for 20 minutes, and then he beats me, I don’t know if it would have stayed as hot. I mean, it was more angering that they just had him beat me in 18 seconds with one move. So it’s like all of these things are things beyond my control. I have nothing to do with any of these things. And they’re just these weird little gifts, right?”

On being told he was winning at WrestleMania 30:

“I don’t even remember. I honestly don’t. WrestleMania 30 was a very difficult time period for me, because my neck was really bad. I had gotten a concussion that I had to hide, not had to hide. But I realized I was in this thing, this trajectory of going to WrestleMania 30. I had gotten a bad concussion, but I had to hide it, and was doing live events with the concussion. Then I was wrestling one match. After the match I was in the shower, and I couldn’t even stand. I was riding by myself, and I had to ask a friend to drive me to the next town. So WrestleMania 30 happened. I was not in a great headspace, to be honest. I got married on Friday, my wife and I went on a honeymoon. I’d never been to Hawaii before, so we went to Maui, and we stayed at this eco retreat, and it was awesome. But I was looking up, and you had this portal to the moon, but the room just wouldn’t stop spinning. At this point, the Chris Nowinski concussion book had come out, and I knew that I’d been lying about concussions for a while. Then we get back from our honeymoon on Saturday, we fly to Baltimore, which is the place where I first won the World Heavyweight Championship, cashing in that Money in the Bank. Then I found out the next morning my dad died. That’s completely unexpected. So it’s like, so people ask me about WrestleMania 30. Honestly, that whole thing was a blur. So I don’t remember them telling me.”

How many concussions have you had?

“So I’ve had 13 documented concussions. [Is the actual number more?] Who knows? I don’t know. It’s just weird, because when I started in 1999 the idea was, Oh, you just got dinged. You got your bell rung. So, with all the stuff that they’ve discovered about concussions since then, it’s probably too many. I would say it’s probably too many.”

Did you have an inkling in 2016 that you had too many concussions?

“So what had happened is I’d had some post-concussion seizures that I never told WWE about. So then Brie who had been there to witness a post-concussion seizure. She said, ‘The next concussion you have…’ and she was worried about me when we were on our honeymoon, the room was spinning, and this is supposed to be the best week of our life. There was also a semi-funny incident, but she became worried that it was because of concussions, rather than just my overall aloofness. We were in Maui, and we had rented a car. You’re going along the east side of the island, you’re doing this drive, and then we stopped at this beach. We made a million stops just to see all the different things. We stopped at this beach, and the waves looked great. And I’m like, I’m gonna go body surfing. So I got in the car, and then Brie took this picture of me as I’m emerging from the water, just like, Oh Bryan must be the happiest man alive. And then she goes, where are the car keys? And then I was like, Oh no. And we lost them to the Pacific Ocean, and then I had left him in my pocket. I don’t think that was because of concussions. I think it’s just my overall aloofness. But after that I had neck surgery, and I was gone for nine months. But she said, the very next concussion you have, you need to tell them about this.'”

On a possible Brie Bella return:

“Yeah, only in certain contexts. She doesn’t want to come back and do a singles run or anything like that. If she comes back, she would want to do it with Nicole. But I think there’s something in her too, and I can appreciate this, because our kids see her as just a mom, just a mom, as if that isn’t the hardest job in the world. Part of her, I think, has a desire to have the kids see her in that light too. I didn’t realize it until later, how amazing my mom was, right in the sense of, okay, we didn’t have any money. She was a single mom. She was working two jobs, going to college. I don’t know if it was my junior year or senior year of high school. She was going on a walk with a friend, and she just collapsed from exhaustion. She had to be taken to the hospital, to the emergency room. She was somebody who probably needed food stamps, but we lived in a small town, she didn’t want to [use them], she was ashamed. She didn’t want to go to the grocery store and pay with food stamps, all these sorts of things. My mom is also an inspiration to me. She went to college, got her master’s degree in psychology, and ended up working with underprivileged kids. She worked with the Native Americans. She worked in the prison. She got attacked in a prison being in a room with an inmate. You think about that, and you think of like, okay, I grew up knowing I was loved. Which is like, okay, Brie and I can fail at everything else in this life, but if we let our kids know that they’re loved. But all of that to say, I don’t understand how my mom did it. Now I’m in amazement, right? Because financially, we’re doing okay. We didn’t have any of the financial stressors that my mom had, and she still made a lot of time for us and like I said, made us know that we were loved. With Brie, this whole mom thing, one day our kids will realize what a great mom she is. But it’s fun to see when they don’t appreciate it. So it’s like, I was FaceTiming her and the kids this morning, and then just our son being as wild as he is, and then our daughter and part of me, but you never say that as a parent. You never say, “Do you realize how much I’m doing for you?””

What is Bryan Danielson grateful for?

“Family, the trees, and this experience right now.”

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