Bryan Danielson
Bryan Lloyd Danielson is an American sports commentator and semi-retired professional wrestler. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling, where he serves as a color commentator for its flagship show Dynamite and is a part-time in-ring performer. He is also known for his tenure in WWE, where he performed under the ring name Daniel Bryan from 2010 to 2021. Noted for his technical wrestling style and popularity with fans, he has been described as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.
Danielson began his professional wrestling career in 1999 on the independent circuit, and signed an 18-month contract with the World Wrestling Federation in 2000; he later went on to make appearances in WWE until 2003. He joined Ring of Honor in 2002, wrestling in the main event of the promotion's first event; considered a mainstay of ROH, he stayed with the company until 2009, winning the ROH World Championship and ROH Pure Championship once each. He unified the championships at one point and was also the inaugural winner of the annual ROH Survival of the Fittest tournament. In 2022, he was named as part of the inaugural class of the ROH Hall of Fame. He also wrestled extensively in Japan, winning the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship in Pro Wrestling Noah and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He won numerous titles on the independent circuit, including the PWG World Championship, the FIP Heavyweight Championship, and the wXw World Heavyweight Championship.
Danielson again signed with WWE in 2009, but was fired after an incident in 2010. Upon his return three months later, he went on to win the WWE Championship four times, the World Heavyweight Championship once, and the WWE United States Championship and WWE Intercontinental Championship once each. He also won the WWE Tag Team Championship and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, becoming the 26th WWE Triple Crown Champion and the 15th WWE Grand Slam Champion. He also won the 2011 Money in the Bank ladder match and the "Superstar of the Year" award at the 2013 Slammy Awards, and headlined several major WWE events, including WWE's flagship event, WrestleMania, twice.
Danielson initially retired from professional wrestling in 2016 due to injuries arising from multiple concussions, which led to seizures and a brain lesion. He then took on a non-wrestling role for WWE as the on-screen general manager of SmackDown and remained in the role until 2018, when he was unexpectedly cleared by doctors to return to in-ring competition. His WWE contract expired in May 2021, and he made his AEW debut four months later. Since joining AEW, he has headlined several AEW pay-per-view events and won the men's 2024 Owen Hart Cup. He defeated Swerve Strickland to become the AEW World Champion at All In 2024, his first championship in the promotion. At WrestleDream 2024, Danielson lost the AEW World Championship to Jon Moxley in what was billed as the final match of his full-time professional wrestling career.
Early life
Bryan Lloyd Danielson was born in Aberdeen, Washington, on May 22, 1981, the son of therapist Darlene and lumberjack Donald "Buddy" Danielson. His mother was pregnant with him for over 10 months. He has an older sister named Billie Sue. His father's job moved the family to Vernal, Utah, then to Albany, Oregon, before they returned to Aberdeen. His parents divorced over his father's alcoholism when Danielson was a child, though they remained on good terms. During his childhood, Danielson was shown a professional wrestling magazine by a friend, and has been a fan of wrestling ever since. He considered himself shy and antisocial as a child and teenager, but still competed in sports such as football and track and field. To help his mother support the family after his parents' divorce, he and his sister both delivered newspapers as children, and later worked at McDonald's as teenagers. For a brief time in high school, he lived with his father in Castle Rock, Washington.Professional wrestling career
Early career (1999–2000)
During his sophomore year at Aberdeen High School, Danielson decided to pursue a professional wrestling career and attempted to train at Dean Malenko's wrestling school in Florida. However, by the time he graduated in 1999, the school had closed down. Following a friend's suggestion, he instead began training under Shawn Michaels and Rudy Gonzalez at the Texas Wrestling Academy in San Antonio, Texas. After his wrestling debut in December 1999, he toured Japan with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling alongside Lance Cade, a fellow trainee from the TWA, and they competed in several tag team matches. He won the TWA Tag Team Championship with Spanky on March 21, 2000, defeating The Board of Education, but they dropped the titles back to The Board of Education two weeks later.World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment (2000–2003)
While touring the country's independent circuit, Danielson was signed to a developmental deal by the World Wrestling Federation to work in their developmental system and was assigned to Memphis Championship Wrestling, where he gained exposure and was trained by WWF competitor William Regal, whom he credited as being instrumental in the development of his career. During this time, he adopted his moniker of the "American Dragon". WWF severed its ties with MCW in 2001, but not before Danielson won the MCW Light Heavyweight Championship and the MCW Tag Team Championship with Spanky. After 18 months with the company, he was released from his WWF contract in July 2001. Danielson revealed in his 2015 autobiography that he was close to being called up to the main roster during the 2001 Royal Rumble match: he explained that the WWF thought of using him as one of their key figures in the newly created cruiserweight division, which was inspired by World Championship Wrestling.In 2002, Danielson wrestled two matches for the renamed World Wrestling Entertainment despite not being a contracted performer for the company. He was quickly defeated by both Sean O'Haire and Little Guido in his two appearances. He went on to make four additional non-contracted appearances for WWE in 2003 on its secondary shows, Velocity and Heat, initially as enhancement talent before being allowed to compete in longer matches; he wrestled Jamie Noble at a Velocity taping in January, Rico at a Heat taping in February, John Cena at a Velocity taping also in February, and made his final appearance in November in a tag team match against Paul London and Spanky at a Velocity taping, in which he was partnered with John Walters. This was his final appearance for the promotion for over five years.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2001–2004)
Danielson went to Japan after his release from the WWF, competing in Japan's premier promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, where he used his American Dragon persona and donned a red, white and blue mask reminiscent of a dragon. As a part of the junior heavyweight division, Danielson had success in both singles and tag team competition in the company, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship with Curry Man on March 12, 2004.Ring of Honor (2002–2009)
Founding father (2002–2005)
In 2002, Danielson joined the independent promotion Ring of Honor, where he is acknowledged as a "Founding Father" of the company. On February 23, 2002, he competed in the main event of the company's debut event, The Era of Honor Begins, in a three-way match against Christopher Daniels and Low Ki, a match that Low Ki won. One of his matches with Austin Aries, performed on August 7, 2004, at Testing the Limit, lasted seventy-four minutes before Aries was finally declared the victor. One of the more notable rivalries he had in the early years in the company was with Homicide, as the two fought numerous matches with a variety of stipulations, culminating in a steel cage match on May 13, 2005, at The Final Showdown, where Danielson was victorious.Despite winning the company's inaugural Survival of the Fittest tournament in 2004, Bryan did not win a ROH title. In 2005, Danielson explained in the company's newsletter, The ROH Newswire, that he had quit ROH after being frustrated by his inability to defeat Austin Aries for the ROH World Championship. It was later revealed Danielson had become frustrated in general with professional wrestling and planned to take some time off to evaluate his career options. However, Danielson had several dates booked in Europe and Japan, leading fans to believe that the periodical was likely a storyline claim for Danielson's absence during this period.
ROH World Champion (2005–2006)
Danielson defeated James Gibson for the ROH World Championship at Glory by Honor IV on September 15, 2005. The rest of the year saw Danielson have successful title defenses even against wrestlers from other companies, such as Pro Wrestling Noah star Naomichi Marufuji at Final Battle on December 17.At the beginning of 2006, Chris Hero, a representative from Combat Zone Wrestling, invaded ROH and targeted Danielson—the two exchanged words over the internet before having a match together, with nearly the entire roster of both companies embarking on an interpromotional feud. Danielson became personally invested in this feud and invaded CZW himself, which led to him having physical altercations with a number of CZW wrestlers. Hero intensified the rivalry, leading to the two wrestling at ROH's Hell Freezes Over event on January 14, where Danielson successfully defended the ROH World Championship. On July 15 at Death Before Dishonor IV, he soon filled the vacant slot on ROH's five-man team which participated in one of CZW's more popular attractions, a steel cage match called the Cage of Death, a ten-man tag team match in which a man from each team starts in the cage and a random wrestler enters periodically thereafter. During the match, Danielson turned on his team by assaulting his rival Samoa Joe before leaving the match and effectively abandoning his involvement in the animosity between the two promotions. As the interpromotional hostility with CZW heightened, Danielson also defended against challengers from the rival company, who had signed an open contract for any CZW wrestler willing to challenge for the ROH World Championship. Former champion Samoa Joe also challenged Danielson at Fight of the Century on August 5, but their match ended in a 60-minute draw.
While having the ROH World Championship, ROH faced the issue of having another title with seemingly equal value, the ROH Pure Championship. Danielson and the ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness had a match to unify the titles. They met at April 29 in a match fought under pure wrestling rules and McGuinness left Danielson outside the ring after a chair shot to win by countout—this was enough to retain the Pure title, but not to win Danielson's World Championship. They had another unification match in McGuinness's native England; ROH decided that there had to be a winner, with a title changing hands by countout and disqualification and a draw forcing a restart. Danielson won the match on August 12 and retired the Pure title as its last champion. During a match with Colt Cabana on August 26, Danielson suffered a real injury when he separated his shoulder, tearing two tendons in it and he tore another tendon in his chest. Danielson returned at Glory by Honor V: Night 2 on September 16 and was challenged by Kenta, a guest competitor from NOAH, due to the two companies' talent exchange agreement—Danielson again retained his championship. At Final Battle on December 23, Danielson's fifteen-month title reign finally ended after he lost to Homicide at his 39th defense and he subsequently took time off from wrestling in order to heal his shoulder.