Bryan Danielson announces that he will retire from the ring if he doesn’t become AEW World Champion at All In at Wembley. Will the final curtain really fall for the exceptional wrestler?
Will the final curtain fall in a few weeks for one of the best wrestlers in history?
Bryan Danielson – the former Daniel Bryan of WWE – will officially put his career on the line at the mega-event AEW All In at London’s Wembley Stadium on August 25. The WWE rival revealed this during a promo staged on the latest edition of the TV show Dynamite on Thursday night.
Danielson’s match against reigning AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland – who Danielson allowed to tempt him into making the decision in a face-off – takes on a new dimension: as die-hard fans know, there are indeed question marks over the 43-year-old’s future.
World title win at AEW – or resignation
Danielson’s AEW contract expires this Thursday and as he has emphasized many times, it is said to be his last deal as a “full-time wrestler” for family reasons. Now the big question is whether All In will actually be the final straw for Danielson and he will follow icon Sting into retirement – or whether the duel will be the start of what is likely to be his final reign with a major title.
Either way, a turning point is imminent for one of the defining show fighters of the past two decades.
Danielson established his fame as an exceptional wrestler in the noughties, in the then flourishing US independent scene following the demise of the then WWE rival WCW. His appearances with the style-setting promotion Ring of Honor (ROH), which has since been swallowed up by AEW, stood out in particular.
In 2010, Danielson signed with WWE and proved the skeptics wrong who did not believe he would have a great career due to his comparatively slight physique. The emotional highlight was being crowned double champion in the main event of WrestleMania 30 in spring 2014 – before his career was put on hold due to serious injury problems caused by repeated concussions.
After a temporary retirement, Danielson made his in-ring comeback in 2018, winning his fourth WWE Title in the process. In 2021, he decided to move to AEW, where Brie Bella’s husband now also plays a key role behind the scenes
AEW wants to retain Danielson
League boss Tony Khan has already announced his desire to keep Danielson in the promotion, at best “for the rest of his life”. Khan once even named Danielson, known as the great “Wrestling Mind”, as his potential successor should anything ever happen to him.
What will actually happen to Danielson after the big match at Wembley – which will also be the undisputed career highlight for his opponent Strickland – is the unanswered question that will keep fans on the edge of their seats until then
