Ahead of his title vs. career bout against AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland at All In this weekend, Bryan Danielson has been making the media rounds promoting the PPV, which takes place at Wembley Stadium in London on Sunday, August 25th.
In an interview with Fightful, Danielson recalled that his last contract expired on August 1, meaning he is currently working without a contract.
“Right now I don’t have a contract. Yeah, I just don’t have a contract. It’s weird.”
But it doesn’t seem like much of a risk to AEW. First, Bryan said he doesn’t believe he’s received offers from other companies, but he doesn’t check his phone often so it’s hard to say for sure.
“Right now I have 3,998 unread text messages, soon to be 4,000. I also have a lot of missed calls. It could be someone in there, but then I’d end up going through all the missed text messages.”
However, he has spoken with AEW owner, president and creative head Tony Khan, who confirmed that he will soon undergo neck surgery after ending his full-time in-ring career in the coming months, but also revealed that he plans to remain with AEW in the future.
“Tony and I have spoken, and when he calls, I always pick up the phone… If I’m near my phone, I have to say that, because he called me last night and it was 9:30pm Pacific time and I was already asleep.
“The first thing I have to do when I’m done wrestling, my number one priority, is get my neck better. I’ll probably need some kind of neck surgery ASAP. So that’s my number one priority. Then I’ll help AEW in any way I can. I love AEW so I want to help out in any way I can and as long as they want my help, I’m happy to help out.”
In a separate interview with BBC Radio, Danielson said he’s ready to begin a career primarily outside the ring, even if it begins immediately after All In.
“Yes, I’m very convinced. If I wasn’t convinced, I wouldn’t have done it, right? (laughs)”
“But I’ve been wrestling for 25 years now, so I feel like now is the time to win the AEW World Championship. I said I was going to win the AEW World Championship and kick people’s heads in. And I’ve kicked a lot of people’s heads in, but I haven’t won a single title.”
American Dragon then provided some stats that bolster his title fight story (AEW interviewer Alex Marvez said he has lost his previous 19 championship matches in WWE and AEW) and explained how this retirement is different from his previous ones.
“So I’m at peace with it. My life is just different now, you know? When I was forced to retire, I wasn’t ready. 2015 was kind of my last fight, but I was forced to retire in 2016. I was 35 at that point and I just felt like this was wrong.
“Plus, I didn’t have anything else to focus my attention on. But now I do. I have a great family now who I enjoy spending time with. So it’s a very different place to be, having chosen it rather than being forced into it.”