Winning the AEW World Championship isn’t on Bryan Danielson’s agenda.
Since officially becoming ‘All Elite’ at AEW’s All Out PPV in 2021, many fans have been hoping to see ‘The American Dragon’ Bryan Danielson capture the AEW World Championship, with the Blackpool Combat Club member having fallen short on numerous attempts thus far.
Speaking on an SXSW panel recently, however, Danielson revealed that, despite people often telling him that he’d make a great AEW World Champion, that isn’t something that interests him, his his priorities being on developing the next generation of stars that can carry AEW into the future.
“One of the things I loved about AEW and the idea of it is that it made the pro wrestling industry healthier, and so, when I look at that, how do I make this industry that I love healthier? And the idea is to pass on what stardom I have been given to the younger wrestlers. I’ve had some people say things to me like ‘Bryan you should be champion’ or ‘you should’ve been champion’ or ‘you should’ve this’ or ‘you should’ve that’ and the reality is to me, no. The champions that we’ve had have been great. Hangman was a great champion, MJF was a great champion, and it elevated these younger people. These people are stars. You put Hangman on TV now and he draws a rating. You put MJF now on TV he draws a rating. It would be easy to take stars of the past and make them your champion and make them your top guy. That’s the easy way. It’s much harder to take somebody like MJF, who hadn’t been on national television before, and turn him into a star that draws ratings. That was my bigger goal.”
-Bryan Danielson
Whilst the AEW World Championship doesn’t appear to be in Danielson’s sights, his catalogue of phenomenal in-ring outings looks set to only be strengthened in the coming weeks, with this past Saturday’s episode of AEW Collision seeing a match between Danielson and new AEW signee Will Ospreay made official for AEW Dynasty on April 21st.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the plans for Bryan Danielson moving forward as soon as we hear more.
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