Bryan Danielson doesn't have set goals, but he does have things he's excited for.
Danielson has entered AEW with a new excitement for wrestling as he's offered more freedom in the ring and isn't as protected as he was in WWE. Though there are many dream matches for Danielson in AEW, and some have already come to frution, Danielson isn't worried about reaching any goals.
"No, I don't have that kind of ambition," Danielson said on FITE in Focus when asked about having any goals left in his wrestling career. "My ambition is completely different than a lot of ambition."
Danielson once again told the story of receiving the lowest ambition score ever after taking a test with WWE.
He continued by saying, "One of my goals for myself, personally, is to become one of the best wrestlers that I can be, as far as keep improving in different aspects. A lot of these things, most fans will never notice, it's just things that are particular to me or things that I enjoy. The other thing is to enjoy this experience of doing the thing that I love. I learned the hard way that...before I was forced to retire, it was like, you don't respect it, in the sense that it can be taken away from you. Once you have that, it's like, 'Oh, okay, this can be taken away from me at literally any time,' and it's not up to my discretion. Anybody can get hurt on any given and it can just go away like that. Then, that becomes, rather than stressing about it or getting nervous before big matches, to enjoy those feelings. If you were to ask me was I nervous before the match with Kenny Omega, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, it felt like the biggest match of my career. I didn't feel nervous at all. I did feel the butterflies, but I was enjoying the butterflies and soaking in that. Where else in my life do I get those kinds of butterflies? There are so many people watching all over the world, not to mention the 20,000 people in the stadium. It's the biggest show AEW has done, it's my first match, and I have been watching to wrestle Kenny Omega for a long time. Where else are you going to feel those butterflies? Rather than be like, 'Oh god, I'm nervous and stressed,' to enjoy feeling that and being like, 'this is what excitement feels like.' That's one of my goals, to enjoy this process. I feel I've done a good job since I've come back from retirement enjoying moments without the stress of it. I trained with Shawn Michaels and ne of the things he said to us is, 'The moment you go out there and stop feeling nervous is the moment you need to retire.' I've found that, I actually had to retire to come back and not feel that nervousness and it's made it a more joyful experience."
Danielson did name a couple of goals he would like to achieve but noted that he won't be bothered if they don't happen.
"As far as, goals like, 'I want to do this, I want to do that,' I don't have a lot of that. I would like to do...there are some people I would like to wrestle in AEW and obviously you want them to be incredible matches. I'd love to be able to go to New Japan and do the G1, but that's COVID-dependent. I don't hang anything on that. I would love to do something with MJF in AEW. If that doesn't materialize and it never happens, it doesn't matter as long as I enjoy the rest of the things," he said.
Danielson is set to team with Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy, and Christian Cage in an eight-man tag against The Elite (Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and Adam Cole) on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Dynamite beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
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