Bryan Danielson says Konosuke Takeshita is special.
Danielson is widely viewed as one of the best wrestlers in the world. Throughout his career, he has faced a number of renowned competitors. During his time with AEW, he has faced Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho, among other stars. On the January 11 episode of AEW Dynamite, he faced Konosuke Takeshita, one of the most buzzworthy wrestlers in the world today. Takeshita rose to stardom with DDT Pro-Wrestling and started regularly competing for AEW in 2022. Takeshita clashed with Moxley, Eddie Kingston, and Hangman Page on AEW TV and cemented his reputation as a breakout star.
In a backstage interview AEW posted after the match, Danielson shared his thoughts on facing Takeshita. Danielson noted that he heard plenty of his peers praise Takeshita, but he wanted to "feel" it himself by sharing the ring with him. He then stated that he felt like Takeshita was "special" after he took one forearm from him. "The American Dragon" then stated that he believes Takeshita will be talked about as one of the best wrestlers in the world, if not all time.
"Tonight I finally got the chance to wrestle Takeshita. I was really looking forward to it. I’d heard a lot of people who I’ve wrestled, when they wrestled Takeshita, they said, ‘Oh, man, that guy’s great,’ and I got to feel it. It’s one thing to watch somebody, and I watch him, and you see, for how young he is, he’s in his 20s, he looks so good. It looks like he hits so hard. But I want to feel it. It’s one of the things I love about wrestling is feeling [when I’m] out there. When we got out there, and he hit me with the first forearm, I felt it. I felt, this guy is special. I’ve been in the ring with some of the best wrestlers in the world, some of the best wrestlers of all time. I think, by the end, we’re gonna be talking about Takeshita in the same way," Danielson said.
Earlier in January, Takeshita made it to the finals of the PWG Battle of Los Angeles tournament, where he lost to Mike Bailey.
Danielson will face Bandido on the January 18 episode of AEW Dynamite. Check out the card here.
Catch up on our coverage of this week's episode of AEW Dynamite here.
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