AEW superstar Bryan Danielson recently spoke with the Asbury Park Press about all things pro-wrestling, including his thoughts on his 60-minute time limit draw against Adam Page, and how he’s really been embracing the heelish side of his character. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says he can’t believe he got to wrestle a 60-minute match on AEW television:
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that I would do a 60-minute match on television, I would have been like, ‘Where’s that happening?’ So I’ve had some really cool surprises this year.”
How he looks at draws in wrestling as a story device that helps build up a rematch:
“It’s just a story device, right? And it’s interesting to me in the sense of in sporting events, and especially when you’re looking at MMA or boxing and the idea that there are draws in boxing and there are draws in MMA … Usually what it does is it’s a mechanism to lead to a rematch.”
Says he’s been embracing this more cocky and vicious side of his character:
“If you’re used to seeing me in WWE, this is a pretty radical departure. I came in with the attitude that I’m the best, and you’re going to have to prove to me that I’m wrong. One of the cool things to me about wrestling is that we all have these different aspects of our personality and different things that we think and in polite society (feel that) ‘Oh you can’t say that’ or ‘You can’t do this’ or whatever. ‘It’s just not polite,’ or whatever it is. And I think the fun part about wrestling is both as a good guy or as a bad guy, you get to explore those different thought processes. I’m sure actors think the same thing, but they don’t get to come up with their own lines. It’s like the joy that I experience wrestling, whether as a good guy or a bad guy, I think it just kind of bleeds through. To me, it’s not like, ‘This is where I do my evil smile, ha ha ha, this will really get ’em.’ No, it’s usually coming from a real place of joy and me enjoying what I do. I’m very lucky that I love what I do.”