Bryan Danielson Says His Match With Kazuchika Okada At AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2023 Was The Hardest Of His Career
Bryan Danielson looks back on the hardest match of his career.
Bryan Danielson names the hardest match of his wrestling career.
In 2023, Kazuchika Okada and Bryan Danielson would meet in singles action for the first time in what was billed as a ‘dream match’ at the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event. The bout was a brutal affair for Danielson, as he suffered a broken arm and finished the match with the injury, defeating Okada despite it.
While speaking to The Sun Sport about matches throughout his storied career, Danielson named the hardest match of his career, which would end up being his bout with Okada at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door.
“Forbidden Door 2023, I wrestled Kazuchika Okada in the main event of that show and I broke my arm, and we had 10 minutes left to go. Yeah, just gutting it out through. I knew something was wrong. I obviously didn’t know it was broken. I thought it was broken, and I told the referee, I said, ‘I think my arm’s broken.’ He goes, ‘do you want to keep going?’ I said, ‘yeah,’ and the yeah was more of a yeah, question mark. So yeah, that was probably the one that was the hardest to get through. I think one of the beautiful things about wrestling is that it’s unlike anything else when you’re out there actually wrestling and it hurts. We spend so much of our lives trying to avoid discomfort and I’ve really worked in the last 10 years not to try to avoid discomfort. I found that trying to avoid discomfort has led to many of the mistakes in my life, and so even when I’m wrestling, leaning into this discomfort and acknowledging what it is, and then you have the ability to move through it and make better decisions.”
Danielson and Okada would face off in two more singles matches, once in NJPW and another time in All Elite Wrestling.
Danielson recently made a brief return to the ring during the main event of AEW All In Texas but did not have clearance to perform certain moves. You can read more about that here.
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