Is “The American Dragon” retired or not?
Bryan Danielson addressed his retirement status, new AEW commentary gig and some of the issues he is dealing with because of it, during an in-depth interview on the latest episode of INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On how the travel associated with his new AEW commentary role has made things difficult for him: “it’s been interesting, because I wasn’t anticipating being a commentator. I was at home and then they asked me to come in because Taz was getting shoulder surgery and to come in to help out a little bit. So the travel has been difficult for me. That’s one of the things I didn’t expect. Because I’ve traveled my entire adult life, right? It’s no big deal, but with my neck as bad as it is, all of a sudden, you take that, it was almost, gosh, it was like eight or nine months where I was only traveling maybe once a month. I’d go to the pay-per-views and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, the weekly travel has been a lot, and it’s just made sleeping hard and that sort of thing.”
On measures he has taken to try and make travel easier on his body: “I have a cervical pillow now that I travel with me, just because — and for a while I was just sleeping with one of those hand towels underneath my neck, just so it’s not being pushed up or anything like that, but it’s impossible. I live on the West Coast, you know? And then I also live like an hour and a half to two hours from the airport. So it’s impossible for all these cross-country flights to stay in good posture the whole time and all that kind of stuff. And then heaven forbid I fall asleep and I do this and then I wake up and I’m like, oh no, I can’t feel my hand.”
On his thoughts on his commentary gig thus far: “It’s been good and fun. Commentary is a skill. It’s something that you have to learn. I’ve been really lucky and grateful to have Taz and Excalibur and then Tony [Schiavone]. You know, I asked Tony Schiavone to, when he’s not busy backstage — and he’s super busy — if he listens to it and, ‘Can you give me some tips?’ and this sort of thing, because, you know, it’s not something that I’m naturally good at.”
On his retirement status: “I hate the [retired] word because I was forced to retire before [in 2016]. So I never consider myself fully retired. Like — this is how I think and this is how a lot of wrestlers think, ‘Well, I think I could do this in this situation if needed or called upon or whatever it is.’ But yeah, you know, effectively for the Bryan Danielson that I used to be, yeah, that guy doesn’t exist anymore.”
On if he would still consider an in-ring return if he’s not capable of having the style of matches fans expect from him: “I would love to, not on TV, right? I think I could go have fun matches and have fun doing the fun matches. But then I don’t think that that’s the TV — that’s not the kind of wrestling fans would want to pay to see Bryan Danielson do.”
On wanting to avoid neck surgery if possible: “I’d like to never get neck surgery. I was actually doing really well until I started traveling more, and then it’s really gone downhill. I had these weird, they’re not even weird, I wouldn’t even say it’s weird. I had these delusions about like, ‘Okay, maybe I could get back and do a little bit of wrestling or whatever it is.’ Now I see that they were delusions. This traveling is like, ‘Okay, yeah, that would not be a good idea.'”
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