Bryan Danielson is one of the most decorated wrestlers in Ring of Honor history as a former ROH World Champion and a member of the inaugural ROH Hall of Fame class.
Though Danielson hasn't wrestled for ROH since 2009, he says he considered returning to the company in 2018 when his WWE contract was coming up.
“It was really interesting, my contract with WWE was up in 2018, and I was considering going to Ring of Honor," Danielson told Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes. "I was talking to The Young Bucks and I was talking to Cody [Rhodes] just to see, and their contracts were all up with Ring of Honor. I was like, ‘Well what are you guys going to do?’ Even my lawyer, who doesn’t know anything about pro wrestling, he said, ‘Hey, I don’t think you should sign with Ring of Honor if these Young Bucks aren’t going. Because they have got this YouTube show called Being The Elite, I don’t know if you have heard of it, it’s essentially the driver of the popularity of Ring of Honor. So if those guys go away, we don’t know if Ring of Honor will still be as popular. Then with Cody’s contract coming up, if they leave and Cody leaves, what will Ring of Honor’s popularity be like?’"
Danielson continued, "So that was part of the discussion. When you are looking at it in 2014, you don’t envision The Young Bucks starting a YouTube channel and it is going to become super hot and a catalyst for change in pro wrestling. You also don’t envision that even if there is someone with money who backs them and whatever it is, is it going to be someone who is really willing to be fully invested in it the way that Tony Khan is? So you could never have imagined it. But I think that given that, it’s really cool.”
The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) left ROH at the end of 2018 and formed All Elite Wrestling with Kenny Omega and the backing of Tony Khan. Though Danielson re-signed with WWE in 2018, he left the company in 2021 and joined AEW.
Khan purchased ROH in March 2022. Danielson has challenged for the ROH World Title on AEW programming but was unsuccessful. Chris Jericho is the reigning ROH World Champion. He is set to face a former ROH champion on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite.
