In an interview with Nick Stav to help promote AEW returning to Australia in February, Bryan Danielson talked about a last-ditch effort made by Vince McMahon to keep him in WWE, just days before he made his AEW debut.
Danielson noted that he hadn’t actually signed his contract until two or three days before All Out 2021, with WWE contacting him to ask if there was anything they could do, adding:
I called (Vince McMahon) in early August and let him know, ‘Okay, I’ve made my decision and I’m gonna do this.’ Then he had called me one time kind of in the meantime and said, ‘Hey, what if we offered you this instead? That sort of thing.
The former WWE Champion went on to note that Vince himself called very close to the debut, recalling the conversation he had:
It was maybe five days before the pay-per-view and he called me. And this is just what I told him, I said ‘Sir, I’ve already agreed to this thing and if I was somebody to go back on this, like, I feel like you have a decent amount of respect for me, would you still respect me? One of the things that you respect about me is I honor my word.’ But it was a great conversation and he said, ‘Dammit, you’re right.’
Danielson’s run in AEW and professional wrestling as a full-time competitor came to an end at WrestleDream 2024 when Jon Moxley defeated him for the AEW World Championship.
It was announced this past week that Danielson will join the commentary team full-time on AEW Dynamite.
Source: F4WOnline