Bryan Danielson looks back on his decision to leave WWE.
In late 2020, Daniel Bryan returned to the WWE SmackDown brand, where he formed a temporary alliance with the likes of Otis, Big E, and Chad Gable leading into the TLC premium live event on December 20. At the same time, Bryan kept an eye on WWE’s biggest competition, All Elite Wrestling.
During a new interview with TalkSPORT, Bryan (now wrestling under his real name of Bryan Danielson) opened up about a part of AEW programming that partly swayed him to leave WWE and join AEW the following year.
Bryan Danielson shares what made him consider joining AEW
“We had a wrestler, Brodie Lee, who had passed away. They did this incredible tribute show. At that point, I was still with WWE. And the way that they did that show — Brodie was my friend — it touched something in me and in my mind. I was thinking like, ‘Oh, these are the good guys of professional wrestling,’” Bryan recalled. “There’s going to be times where we make wrong, or bad decisions, that happens everywhere. But one of the things that I like to think about AEW is that we try — and we don’t market ourselves as this — to be good.
“[AEW CEO] Tony Khan never says it. He never says, ‘We’re the good guys in professional wrestling. But that’s one of the things that I thought of when I was in WWE,” he continued. “I was like, ‘Oh, the people behind this, who are running this thing, they care about the wrestlers. They care about the fans, too.’ The one thing that I love about Tony is that he is a wrestling fan and he wants to produce a show for wrestling fans, or that wrestling fans will enjoy.”
Brodie Lee, a former wrestler in WWE and AEW, sadly died on December 26, 2020 due to a rare lung condition. On December 30, AEW hosted a special tribute show on their flagship program of Dynamite, with several close to Brodie either speaking or competing on it.
In September 2021, Bryan made the official jump to AEW, beginning with an appearance at the All Out pay-per-view.
