Bryan Danielson will always have people he wants to wrestle for the first time.
The American Dragon ended his full-time career as a wrestler at WrestleDream this weekend. He lost the AEW Championship to Jon Moxley, just weeks after winning the title at Wembley Stadium at All In.
However, he recorded an interview with Shawn Garrett prior to WrestleDream, where Bryan Danielson was asked if there was anybody else he’d love to face in the ring. He mentioned Japanese and Mexican legends, but pondered if an artist is ever truly finished in expressing themselves creatively.
“There’s people coming up all the time. There’s always this key group of legends in Japan, in Mexico that I’d love to wrestle, that I never got the chance to wrestle. This year I felt very fortunate because my favorite luchador ever is Blue Panther. I got to wrestle him in the main event of an Arena Mexico show. In Mexico, that’s the centerpiece for Mexican professional wrestling.”
“There’s always stuff like that, and then there’s the young guys coming up, who I might not have even heard of three years ago. Then you see them and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh. I’d love to wrestle that guy.’ I liken it to this – does an artist ever paint their last painting? There’s always a new vision, there’s always something else you could paint. There’s always a new song to be written. If that is your chosen medium for how you express yourself, which is how I see wrestling. This is how I express myself, this is how I’ve become the person I am today. Who I am has influenced my wrestling, but how I’ve wrestled has influenced who I become.”
Bryan Danielson Wants To Wrestle Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy and Kenny Omega
Bryan Danielson continued, listing wrestlers he’d love to face, including a rematch with Kenny Omega. The former AEW Champion added that he didn’t want to retire completely, as he grew sick of legends having their last match, before coming out of retirement.
“There’s always that idea. For example, I have yet to wrestle Darby Allin. He’s from this area. I would love to wrestle Darby Allin. I haven’t wrestled Orange Cassidy in AEW, I’d love to wrestle Orange Cassidy. Ricochet, who just came to AEW – I haven’t wrestled him, I’d love to wrestle Ricochet. There’s all these things, and there’s people that I’ve only wrestled x number of times who I’d love to wrestle again.”
“For example, my first match in AEW, I wrestled Kenny Omega to a thirty-minute time limit. We haven’t wrestled again since. That’s a match I’d love to do. I’m from a generation who got sick of people saying ‘This is my retirement’, and then they come back. That’s why I say ‘if I lose, this will be the end of my full-time career’, because there’s all these things if I think too much about them, I get super excited.”
