Bryan Danielson Explains Why He Left WWE and Joined AEW

Bryan Danielson made his shocking arrival in All Elite Wrestling during the closing moments of the All Out pay-per-view, helping Christian Cage and Jurassic Express fight off The Elite. Once the cameras stopped rolling Bryan cut a promo in front of the fans in the NOW Arena, explaining why he decided to join the young promotion after being with the WWE for so long. Bryan explained that he loved where he used to work (his WWE contract expired back in late April), but he felt he needed to come to AEW because of the talent on its roster, the passionate fans and, above all else, his love for professional wrestling.

“I am a wrestler,” Bryan said. “I never left wrestling, I took wrestling wherever I went, I said wrestling when I wasn’t supposed to say wrestling. And now I am here to goddamn wrestle. And there are some people around here who call themselves ‘elite.’ I’m going to be here to see if they truly are. So AEW, let’s f—ing go!”

Bryan went into further detail about his decision during the post-show media scrum. Like CM Punk, Bryan also started considering joining AEW after seeing how the company handled the tragic passing of Brodie Lee.

“So I heard something over the past week that one of the things that really turned Punk was the Brodie Lee show,” Danielson said. “It was also one of the things that I saw it and so many of us loved him so much and so we saw it and saw how special it was and we saw, like okay, we’re gonna stop what we’re normally doing. I thought that was really special to me. So that was when I really started kind of thinking (it), knowing that my contract coming up. But the final decision, honestly, was just like, I started thinking about things and WWE was so gracious with me as far as the offer that they gave me. They were going to let me go do some other stuff on the outside. But, I hate to say this… Vince (McMahon) and I have a great relationship. I love him, I do. Sometimes he’s overprotective of me. And I want to be able to push my limits. That’s one of the things that I love about this, is the physicality of what we do out there and being able to push my limits and being able to do that here in a safe manner is one of the things that really drew me here.

“There’s just excitement,” he continued. “You all see it. You were probably all out there and you felt it. You felt how excited people are about this product and it feels vibrant. And even just watching it through a TV screen in a trailer. I’m sitting there going, ‘God this is awesome. I want to be a part of this.’ So that was it… I really battled back and forth because there’s a lot of people there that I consider family, that actually are legitimately my family, and you know, people that I love there. So it was a really tough decision.”