AEW World Champion Bryan Danielson spoke with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes on a number of pro wrestling related topics, including telling Vince McMahon he wanted to leave WWE and work the NJPW G1 Climax.
Danielson said, “So I don’t know for sure if he would have let me. The last conversation that we had where I told him that I was going to [leave], because I told him I was going to go to AEW. I told him once I make my decision, I’ll tell you. And so it was around August of that year, my contract expired the last day of April of 2021, it was early August when I finally decided and I called and told him.”
“Then he kind of asked me why and I said well, this, that, the other… One of the things I want to do is work with New Japan and do the G1. And he did say in that moment, I don’t know if it would have actually ever come to fruition, [but he did say] I’d let you do that, or whatever it is. So I think maybe?”
On how he wasn’t even sure if McMahon knows what the G1 Climax is:
“I don’t know.” “I’m not sure. He definitely knows what New Japan is. So he definitely knows what New Japan is and all that kind of stuff. I told him of my desire to do the G1 before because I kept pitching G1-style tournaments in WWE and I said I’d really like to be able to do this thing.”
