When Bryan Danielson first arrived in AEW at the All Out pay-per-view, he was greeted by the fans inside the NOW Arena with the same thunderous “Yes! Chants” that had been a staple of his WWE presentation for years. But Bryan didn’t join the fans in the chant and hasn’t used it in his various TV appearances since then. He and Tony Khan explained in the All Out post-show media scrum that the trademark rights surrounding the chant are a little unclear.
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“It was awesome. I don’t know, we’re going to have to talk about like what I can do and what I cannot do,” Danielson said. “So one of the things that I do try to respect, because like I said, I appreciate the people I worked for before and respecting their intellectual property and that sort of thing. And so try and making sure that I don’t contradict any of that. And the fans doing it is great, but I’m not sure if I’m going to do it.”
He then explained on Wrasslin’ With Brandon Walker this week that he’s not doing the chant out of respect to WWE’s intellectual property.
“I’m not doing it myself because I respect WWE’s intellectual property,” Danielson said (h/t F4WOnline). “I don’t think anything legally…they haven’t threatened anything legally. I had a great conversation with Kevin Dunn before I debuted with AEW. I was very up front with WWE on ‘I want to let you guys know I’m leaving. This is my debut date.’ They asked me, politely, to respect their intellectual property even on some things that couldn’t be legally enforced. I’m trying my best to do that. There are also certain expectations fans have of me that they want to be able to do and I’m happy they still get to do that. I’m going to do my best to avoid swinging my arms in the air.”
He then told Dave Meltzer that his meeting with Dunn never included any mention of the chant and that WWE has never threatened any sort of legal action in the event that he does use it. Danielson will make his in-ring debut for AEW tonight, taking on Kenny Omega in the main event of AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam.
