After a life in the ring, All Elite Wrestling star Bryan Danielson is ready to go home.
The pro wrestling legend is ending his full-time career to spend more time with his kids.
Despite being a pro wrestler for nearly 25 years, Danielson is still at the peak of his powers. In the last year alone, he’s wrestled global legends and the next generation’s stars, traveled to the Tokyo Dome and Arena México, and, most recently, taken part in a true-to-its-title “Anarchy in the Arena” match that included not only folding chairs and garbage cans but thumbtacks and a flamethrower.
The 43-year-old is massively popular, performs at a high level and is considered by many to be the greatest technical wrestler of all time. So why is the “American Dragon” hanging up his boots?
“I’m going to end my full-time career here this year so I can be more present and more at home with my kids,” Danielson says. “They’re at an age where they want me around, and that’s not going to exist forever. There’s that magic before you get a little bit older that I want to be around for.”
Pro wrestling, especially at Danielson’s level, demands an itinerant lifestyle with plenty of time on the road or in the air. Recently, the AEW star has been featured on the company’s two main shows, “Dynamite” on Wednesdays and “Collision” on Saturdays, and he’s constantly traveling away from his home on the West Coast for runs of shows. The schedule is tough on everyone.
“It’s not only hard for the kids, it’s hard on my wife, too, because she’s not even a stay-at-home mom — which is a hard job as it is — she runs three companies, and she’s got her own wine tasting thing in Napa,” he says.
His wife, Brie Garcia, understands the grueling life of a pro wrestler, because she was one, too. She performed for World Wrestling Entertainment for more than a decade under the name Brie Bella. As part of the Bella Twins, alongside sister Nikki, Brie was a key part of the women’s division and anchored a pair of reality shows about the real lives of female wrestlers (or, at least, as “real” as pro wrestlers on a reality show can be).
Garcia met Danielson when he also wrestled for WWE, under the name Daniel Bryan, and they married in 2014. He spent the majority of his career at WWE and became a global icon as a fan-favorite underdog who took over pop culture with his “Yes!” chant and eventually became world champion. But his time at the top was cut short: Danielson was forced to retire in 2016 due to concussion-related issues.
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After several years on the bench, and countless tests and evaluations, he was cleared to return to the ring in 2018 and remained a top star in WWE for three more years. When his contract expired in 2021, he jumped ship to AEW, an upstart founded in 2019 that delivers more authentic “pro wrestling” than the “sports entertainment” favored by WWE. Since then, Danielson has relished the opportunity to wrestle different styles, from technical showcases to bloody brawls, and revels in the fact that he gets to wrestle at all, considering the health issues that led to his hiatus.
“Since I’ve come back from that retirement, I don’t take it for granted that I get to do this,” he says.
When he steps away from the ring full time this year, it probably won’t be because of his injuries (although it always could: In the last year, he’s broken an arm and an orbital bone). It will be because of a promise he made to his daughter Birdie, who was born in 2017, that he would wind down his career when she turned 7.
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Birdie doesn’t watch too much wrestling; her brother Buddy, who was born in 2020, can get a “little aggressive” as it is. However, Garcia did let the kids watch a pay-per-view last year where Danielson had a “strap match” in which he was attached by the wrist to his opponent with a length of leather. During the no-disqualification contest, both men were “bleeding buckets.” Birdie was “horrified,” and Garcia covered by saying the blood was ketchup. Buddy didn’t buy it.
“When I got home after that, he had scraped his shin and it was bleeding and he goes, ‘Look, Daddy, it’s ketchup, just like yours,’” he says, imitating the toddler’s sarcastic tone.
Explaining why Daddy is fighting on TV while bleeding profusely isn’t the weirdest thing about being a wrestler and a father. Danielson’s children have his action figure, and it took Birdie a while to understand why that wasn’t the case with her friends and their parents.
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As his days as a full-time wrestler wind down, Danielson is focused on making memories. During every match, he takes a moment to close his eyes and absorb the experience in the ring, from the physical contact to the crowd reactions.
“There’s just this energy that you can feel inside your body. To me, it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced,” he says.
He’s hoping that the exercise will allow him to tap into those sensations down the line, when he’s at home, wrestling only once or twice a year, and missing the activity that he has done for nearly 25 years. Maybe that will be enough.
“The hard part of letting go,” he says, “is that I still love it so much.”
“AEW Presents Dynamite & Rampage,” June 19 at 7:30 p.m. at EagleBank Arena, 4500 Patriot Cir., Fairfax. eaglebankarena.com. $25-$95.
