Bryan Danielson appeared on this week’s AEW Dynamite and officially called out AEW World Champion Kenny Omega to a dream match. Danielson arrived in the company back at All Out, then nearly locked Omega in a Yes Lock on last week’s Dynamite before the rest of The Elite made the save. This time Danielson was interrupted by Omega and Don Callis, the latter of whom did most of the talking. Danielson finally got Omega’s attention by pointing out that he wasn’t “The Best Bout Machine” anymore, prompting the world champion to accept Danielson’s challenge.ย
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It was then confirmed by AEW’s commentary team that the match will take place at AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam next week at Arthur Ashe Stadium. However, Omega’s world championship will not be on the line.ย
Danielson explained why he chose to join AEW over staying with WWE back at All Out, saying in his post-show promo that the roster AEW had created, the excitement in the fanbase and the fact that wrestling was a priority all drove him to the young promotion. He then explained further in a post-show press conference.ย
“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.”
