AEW: Bryan Danielson on Having Best Matches of His Career in AEW & His Current Physical Status, Chris Jericho on Not Being Interested in Retirement Tour, More News

Aug 23, 2024

Bryan Danielson Comments on Having the Best Matches of His Career in AEW & His Current Physical Status

Bleacher Report held a recent interview with Bryan Danielson. One of the topics discussed Danielson’s thoughts about him putting everything together as a character and in-ring performer during his time in AEW and having the best matches of his career in AEW.

“My AEW run has really felt to me, from a creative aspect, is putting it all together. It took me 20 years to put it all together: the entertainment, the wrestling and knowing who I am as a person and knowing who I am as a character. If you look at the matches, in my mind, I’ve had the best matches of my career in AEW. Whether they’ve been difference-makers or not, that’s a different thing entirely, but from a creative aspect, these last three years have been some of the most fun of my career but also the wrestling matches I’ve enjoyed the most.”

Danielson also provided an update on his current physical status ahead of his match against Swerve Strickland at AEW All In 2024.

“My neck is trashed. But other than that, I feel good. One of the things that I’m good at is experiencing pain and it not necessarily affecting me much. It doesn’t really affect my mental space The only thing that it does kind of affect is my parenting because our son is four and wild. He loves jumping on my back and jumping on my neck, and I’m like, ‘Argh, stop!’
It affects my training and that sort of thing. But other than that, I feel good. The odds are, by the end of the year, I’m probably going to have to get neck surgery or whatever it is. But right now, it feels manageable. And when I get out and wrestle, I feel invincible. So that’s not even a concern.”

Chris Jericho Comments On Not Currently Being Interested in Having Retirement Tour for His Career

TV Insider held a recent interview with Chris Jericho. One of the topics discussed included Jericho’s thoughts about him not currently being interested in having a retirement tour similar to Sting, Bryan Danielson, and John Cena for his wrestling career.

“It doesn’t change my perspective at all because Bryan was out for [three] years. He couldn’t work. John hasn’t worked regularly at about the same time. Bryan has been incredible since he came back from his injuries. He is one of the greatest wrestlers in the world and of all time. If he wants to step back, he’ll do that. John is the same thing. One of the greatest of all time. He went to Hollywood and became a huge success and wants to come back and put an exclamation point on his career. To me, I don’t see the point for me. That’s just me. I remember a few years ago The Scorpions had a big farewell tour and then decided they were having too much fun and came back and played. Same with Judas Priest. The Who retired in 1982 and [are] still playing. Why put the pressure on a retirement and a timeline? For me, I’m just happy to just be still doing it at a high level.
When that time comes, I don’t want a retirement tour I think. I don’t need a big retirement match. I’ll just stop. Maybe I’ll feel differently when it comes to that, but I also have other things. I have Fozzy where I get the live element form as well. I have the podcast, cruise, acting. I have other stuff going on and have walked away from wrestling a couple of times. We’ll see what happens. Sting’s retirement was one of the greatest moments of all time. I think Cena doing a farewell tour is awesome and people know these are the dates to see him. John is very driven that way. He’ll be done when he says he is done and never come back. Bryan already said he would never retire. You won’t see him as a full-time wrestler, but you’ll see him in a ring for a long time. Everyone is different. For me, I just live in the moment and enjoy going to work every week and doing cool sh*t. As long as I feel that way, I will continue doing so.”

AEW News & Notes

AEW reportedly has sold and distributed around 50,022 tickets for their Aug. 25th All In 2024 event at Wembley Stadium in London, England as of this past Wednesday, according to WrestleTix.

In a recent interview with the Daily Star, Chris Jericho stated that Fozzy will be performing again in AEW at this Sunday’s All In 2024 event. Jericho stated that he will be signing himself to the ring for his FTW Championship match at the event.

In a recent interview with the Wrestling With Freddie podcast, Mariah May gave her thoughts about the segments in AEW involving kissing between her, “Timeless” Toni Storm, and Mina Shirakawa being something that was not pitched to them by others in AEW to do. May stated “It was not pitched, we just did it. Mina and I are extremely close, we’ve always been close since STARDOM. We just did it. The next time around, they were like, ‘Hey, can you guys stop kissing?’ Like you said, I think there’s a bit of an archaic view on it and people seem to think we have no autonomy of our bodies. It’s my choice who I kiss, it’s my choice what I do. If I’m not comfortable doing something, I would always say so. I remember seeing the usual suspects being like, ‘Oh my god, this is setting women’s wrestling back so much.’ It’s like, nobody made us do it. We chose to do it. That’s just how we show affection to each other and we always have in our friendship. Like I said, if I don’t wanna do something, I won’t. Myself, Mina, and Toni are three extremely decorated women’s wrestlers who off our own backs have become very successful all over the world. To try and tell us we’re setting women’s wrestling back was pretty crazy to me and like you said, the numbers don’t lie and I think myself, Mina, and Toni for the best rated segments for about eight weeks in a row as we should.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the AEW Close Up with Renee Paquette show, Willow Nightingale gave her thoughts about her current rivalry and feud with Kris Statlander in AEW. Nightingale stated “It’s pretty bittersweet because you always think the biggest moments of my career, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be in front of this crazy crowd in this historic, giant building,’ and you think you’re gonna do it with your friend. Sure, I was envisioning sharing big, special moments with Stat, but not this way. So it is a little disorienting. It’s also…she must have been aware that she had whatever these weird feelings were stirring up, and in her head, she just kind of was playing me along. I don’t really know what happened, but it hurts. I’m a very kind, loving person, and bubbly, and I think that’s what people connect to me for. I also, at my core, think that violence and aggression is one of our first languages, and it’s a very useful way to express yourself. So I get to live that duality. I can have my personality be how I feel most of the time, how I want to interact with people. But sometimes, that’s not how it goes, and I, in this job, get to find a way to deal with those less-than-savory feelings. I guess I’m in a way that I get to wrestle her because it’s one way for me to work through this, but I don’t know. I don’t know that I have been betrayed by a friend like this ever before in my life. So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Tapped Out Podcast Network, QT Marshall gave his thoughts about his current backstage role in AEW since his return to the company and how currently acts as a bridge between AEW talent and AEW CEO Tony Khan. Marshall stated “So, I guess show coordination is like helping out the show together I’d say. VP of creative coordination is like, I really try to be a bridge between the talent and Tony. I kind of know what Tony looks for when it comes to pitching ideas so I can kind of filter them a little bit unless the talent is just so adamant that their idea is right, then we’ll go to Tony. I didn’t really have a choice, let’s put it that way. It was like, ‘Hey, it’s time to be promoted, this what what we’re thinking.’ Okay. I think I have a lot of other responsibilities that aren’t on paper, those aren’t what I’m told I have to do, I think I just do them. Then there’s like always this weird question of, what does he do here? It’s like, I’m not on the computer anymore, I don’t bring my computer to work. I bring a backpack and I’m wearing an Under Armour polo with sweatpants on and it’s like, what is he doing? At the end of the day, everyone knows what I’m doing but they don’t see it. I used to walk around with a computer and format the show with Tony, a lot of that responsibility went away when I went away because we had to fill those roles. It’s not something I really clamor for but at the end of the day, a title is a title, I don’t really look at it like that. You can call me whatever you want, I know what my job is and I guess it’s really just to alleviate a lot of the pressure from Tony and filter a lot of the things because again, we have so much talents and they all want to be world champion, I get it. So, how do we make that happen to where there’s not a line at the door for three and a half hours. I walk around, I talk to each talent. They all know they can trust me. I also give them a perspective as a talent but also a perspective from the office side, which is really important to be able to explain stuff to a talent and not be able to sugarcoat anything or [say], oh, I’ll find out for you. Whatever you say you’re gonna do, just do it and it’s pretty easy.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)