AEW Star Claims Most WWE Wrestlers Want Company To Succeed
Many people within WWE want AEW to succeed.
When AEW launched in 2019, Bryan Danielson was still flying high in WWE, and he would even hold a position as part of the creative team before letting his contract expire in May 2021.
Despite WWE wanting to tie the star to a new deal, Danielson decided to leave and made his AEW debut that September.
Much has been made about the rivalry between the two promotions and wrestlers switching between both companies. However, Danielson says talk of any bad feeling between the two sides is way overblown.
Speaking at a SXSW Panel, Danielson reflected on AEW’s launch and claimed the majority of wrestlers in WWE want the company to succeed as they feel competition can only be good for the business.
“I see Cody [Cody Rhodes] wrestling Penta [Penta El Zero Miedo] on Dynamite and he does a top rope hurricanrana. Both men are standing on the top rope and Cody jumps and puts his legs on Penta’s shoulders, and flips him off the top. Knowing Cody, at first I was like, ‘Holy sh*t. This is what Cody is doing now?’ This is what you have to do. My reference point for that was not ‘this is what AEW guys are doing,’ my reference point was, ‘I don’t know if I can hang.’ That was the thought.
Going back to the awareness in WWE at the time when AEW started, everybody was aware. Different people had different takes on it. The same thing whenever there is some kind of challenge or start up happening. You have some people who want them to fail right away. Just to prove whatever it is. ‘There’s only one way to do this’ and that sort of thing. Most of us, most of the wrestlers, wanted AEW to succeed.
That’s better for everybody. You look at any industry, if there is just one bring on top and there is no competition, that’s not good for talent, that’s not good for people working on the creative side. It’s not good for a lot of people. For a lot of us, we were watching and hoping that it would succeed. Little did we know, any of us, four years in, they’d sell 81,000 tickets to Wembley. Everyone was watching it, and everybody had different opinions,”
During the same appearance, Bryan Danielson revealed Vince McMahon asked him about AEW, and what the company was doing that he wasn’t.
WWE Out-Bid For Mercedes Mone And Will Ospreay
The comments from the American Dragon come after it was revealed that both Mercedes Mone and Will Ospreay turned down WWE after being offered more money by AEW.
According to one report, Mercedes Mone has become the highest-paid woman in wrestling after joining AEW with WWE unwilling to pay her “Becky Lynch money.”
Meanwhile, even people within WWE reportedly thought Triple H’s offer to Will Ospreay was “way too low.”
H/t to Fightful