Bryan Danielson has stated in many interviews that he felt WWE was protective of him during his time in the company and especially following his in-ring return in 2018.
Danielson was forced to retire in 2016 due to concussion issues and fans worried whenever he would take a bump that looked rough. Fans weren't the only ones as Vince McMahon was also very worried when Danielson had a rough landing.
Speaking to Jimmy Traina on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, Danielson discussed how WWE viewed him as injury prone.
"I want to say that, I think their story of me, which they believe, is they think I'm injury prone because...the reality is, I've been wrestling for 21 years, I've had one surgery, which was my neck surgery and I was out for nine months and I was forced to retire due to multiple concussions. All the concussion doctors have cleared me and that was concussions over the span of, at that point, 15-plus years. I haven't had that many injuries and I'm really durable, especially when you compare me to Triple H or John Cena or all these other people. I haven't had any problems with my knees or anything like that," he said.
Danielson went on to recall Vince's reaction following his 2020 Elimination Chamber bout with Drew Gulak.
"Vince is very protective of me in almost like a fatherly type way," he said. "I was wrestling Drew Gulak at Elimination Chamber right before the pandemic. I took a German suplex that went a little bit wrong and I landed on my head. When I got to the back, Vince was so mad at me and he was like, it wasn't anything about the performance. After he got mad at me, I said, 'Was the match okay?' 'Yeah, the match was great, but you can't do that.' He doesn't want me to get hurt. You don't want your boss to get mad at you. I saw it as coming from a very loving perspective."
Danielson has spoken highly of McMahon since leaving WWE to join AEW, even writing an open letter to thank him. You can view the letter by clicking here.
Danielson made his AEW in-ring debut on Wednesday's Dynamite, going to a draw with Kenny Omega. If you missed anything from AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
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