Bryan Danielson Reveals Major Factors In Leaving WWE For AEW

Bryan Danielson's AEW debut at All Out 2021 is one of the most memorable pay-per-view closing scenes of the last decade, and for good reason.

Danielson made the shocking jump from WWE to AEW after spending more than a decade rising the ranks and becoming one of the former's most memorable performers.

A three-year retirement due to injury stole several dream matches from his career, and he embarked on a new journey upon his WWE deal coming to a close in the spring of 2021.

The former AEW and WWE World Champion recently spoke with talkSPORT, and revealed a couple of factors that led to him leaving the comfort of WWE for a relatively new venture in Tony Khan's AEW at the time.

“We as a company don't approach other companies in a warlike fashion, right? We don't feel like we're in a war with anybody. But that's not the same as the other side," he said, referring to WWE. "We're constantly kind of on the defense in that. I don't know the right strategy, but I like the way Tony Khan handles things because that it in my mind, it makes us the good guys."

Danielson would acknowledge that even at times, perhaps AEW has been too passive in its approach to handling what he perceives to be attacks from WWE.

"But I don't know if at some point we need to go more on the offensive. I've had friends bring that up to me like, ‘Oh, you guys should attack.’ I'm like, wait a second. Like one, that's not my personality. Two, that's not Tony Khan's personality. And I think that's one of the things that drew me to AEW. When I was in WWE, I was watching the way AEW did things," he said.

AEW was loaded with elite in-ring talent like Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, MJF, and other big names Danielson no doubt wanted to mix it up with. However, he revealed in the interview there was one major moment that made him put serious consideration into making the move to AEW.

"We had a wrestler, Brodie Lee, who had passed away. They did this incredible tribute show. At that point, I was still with WWE. And the way that they did that show -- Brodie was my friend -- it touched something in me and in my mind. I was thinking like, ‘Oh, these are the good guys of professional wrestling’. There's going to be times where we make wrong, or bad decisions, that happens everywhere. But one of the things that I like to think about AEW is that we try -- and we don't market ourselves as this -- to be good," he said.

Khan recently opened up about his close relationship with Danielson, who has moved into a quasi-associate role with the company. While Danielson's in-ring future is up in the air following his loss to Jon Moxley at WrestleDream, the former champion was extremely complimentary of his current boss and his approach to doing right by the fans.

"Tony Khan never says it. He never says, 'We're the good guys in professional wrestling.' But that's one of the things that I thought of when I was in WWE. I was like, ‘Oh, the people behind this, who are running this thing, they care about the wrestlers. They care about the fans, too,'" he said. "The one thing that I love about Tony is that he is a wrestling fan and he wants to produce a show for wrestling fans, or that wrestling fans will enjoy.”

Danielson also recently made headlines when he compared winning the AEW World Championship at All In to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship win at WrestleMania.

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