Bryan Danielson Wasn’t Sure He Could ‘Do What Was Asked Of Him’ In His Final AEW Match Due To Neck Pain

Bryan Danielson speaks on his final AEW match.

On October 12th, 2024, Bryan Danielson would meet Jon Moxley in the main event of the pay-per-view with the AEW World Championship on the line. Moxley would end up choking out Danielson, taking the championship from him, leading to Danielson retiring from active competition. However, Danielson would get his revenge at AEW All In, helping Hangman Page dethrone Jon Moxley earlier this month.

While speaking to the Sun Sport in a new interview, Bryan Danielson noted that he wasn’t sure he could do what was asked of him in his final AEW match.

“I would think the last match that I had, which was in AEW against Jon Moxley in Tacoma, Washington, which is the building that I saw my first ever wrestling match. The main event was the Ultimate Warrior versus Rick Rude. I was ready to be done, I mean, at that point, my neck had been really bad for six plus months and causing me a tremendous amount of pain. I wasn’t sure that I could do what I was kind of being asked to do. My mom was in the front row. We knew it was going to be my last match and as I’m getting choked unconscious, I see my mom in the front row and then just mouth to her that I love you. This whole career that I’ve had wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my family, and then the fact that my mom got to be there for that is really, really cool. It wasn’t just my mom. My high school friends were there. It was just a really, really cool, special thing, just the emotion of knowing, ‘okay, this is the end of this chapter of my life.’ and I’m not sad about it. Happy that I got to experience this whole thing, and almost kind of relieved that it’s over, because I was in so much pain.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Danielson named his match with Kazuchika Okada at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2023 as the hardest of his career. You can read more about that here.

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