Bryan Danielson spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated to promote this Sunday’s AEW & NJPW: Forbidden Door 2024 pay-per-view.
During the discussion, “The American Dragon” gave an update on his physical condition as he nears the end of his career as a full-time active in-ring talent.
“My neck isn’t doing so great right now,” Danielson said. “This is my chance to wrestle Shingo again, and Forbidden Door is one of my favorite pay-per-views. That’s because of the uniqueness of it. Five years ago, multiple promotions didn’t work together to put on a super show. Now CMLL and Stardom are involved. This didn’t exist before. I love this show.”
Danielson continued, “I don’t want to be in that [world champion] position–I don’t feel like that’s my position anymore,” said Danielson. “The quality of wrestling in AEW is so high, it’s really hard to main-event pay-per-views. That’s not something my body can really do anymore. I know there are a percentage of fans who would like that, but I don’t think it’s my place. And here’s the truth: I don’t want anything to do creatively with my own stuff. I also don’t know where people get the notion that I do. It’s very hard in wrestling to be objective about yourself, so I leave that in the hands of other people. That was the same thing in WWE, even when I was part of the creative team. The head writer of SmackDown at the time, Ryan Callahan, asked me what I wanted to do, and I remember saying I didn’t want to talk about what I wanted to do. I don’t think you can be objective about that stuff.”
Check out the complete interview at SI.com.
