Bryan Danielson competed in his last match at AEW WrestleDream 2024, losing the AEW World Title to Jon Moxley.
Danielson worked his final months through a neck injury and put his career on the line against Swerve Strickland at AEW All In 2024. Danielson won the AEW World Title in the bout, prolonging his career for an extra couple of months before losing to Moxley.
"I have no inclination right now, and no desire to wrestle right now. The last six months of my career built up to that I actually, I look at it now as a blessing," Danielson told Alistair McGeorge of Metro. "Because the six months leading into my last match were so hard and my neck was so bad. And, I mean, there’s things that I couldn’t physically do, right? When the last match came against, against Moxley, I was ready. And that’s a good place to be, because when I was forced to retire before [in WWE in 2016], I didn’t want to be retired. I kept fighting internally and outwardly to to come back. Now I’m at peace with it. And I don’t know if I would be so at peace if I hadn’t been hurting as bad as I was the last six months."
When asked if he would be part of AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door in London, Danielson replied, "‘I’m like, 95% chance no. But the reality is that, say you have a big main event and something happens where somebody gets hurt, and Tony says, 'Hey Bryan, we need you for this thing, is there something you could do?' Yeah, there’s something I could do. I just have to be careful. But I mean, it’s one of those things where there’s ways to work around it. But you just can’t do it all the time."
Danielson admitted he is still trying to avoid neck surgery.
It is unknown if or when Danielson will return to the ring.
