Bryan Danielson Makes Bold Prediction About Okada Rematch

Bryan Danielson wants revenge when he faces Kazuchika Okada in a singles match for the second time.

In the main event of the AEW-NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view in June 2023, Bryan Danielson defeated Kazuchika Okada in a dream match between two men who are considered among the best wrestlers of this generation and perhaps all-time.

After the match, it was revealed that Danielson suffered a broken right arm during the match when Okada did an elbow drop that broke the arm. Despite the injury, Danielson continued to wrestle for another ten minutes and went on to win the match.

That injury cost Danielson a few months of his career, which included missing AEW’s massive All In London show at Wembley Stadium in August.

At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 on January 4th at the Tokyo Dome, Danielson will face Okada again in a match where Okada will be in his home country. While speaking to NJPW on YouTube, Danielson talked about his mindset going into the rematch with Okada.

“You get in the ring with him and you realize he’s better than what you saw, and that brings out a fire inside of me to be better than I am on a normal day. That’s what Wrestle Kingdom’s going to be because when you’re wrestling Okada, not only do you have to be better than you normally are, now there’s a little bit — gosh, I hate to even say a little bit — there’s a lot of resentment and a lot of borderline hatred.”

“I hate to even use that word because I am in the twilight of my wrestling career. And Okada, on his own, has taken away over three months of that. In the last year of my full-time pro wrestling career, he’s taken away three months! And when you want to talk about ‘fighting spirit’ and you wanna talk about ‘strong style,’ I don’t know if there’s a better example than breaking your arm and tapping out Okada on the same night when nobody’s tapped out Okada since 2015.”

“After doing that and because I wrestled for another 10 minutes with a broken arm and because I fought through, I couldn’t hold my son for two months. I still don’t have full strength in my right arm because I did come back a little bit early, because I come back when people need me to come back.”

Bryan Danielson Predicts An Injury For Kazuchika Okada

During the AEW Continental Classic tournament throughout December and the end of November, Danielson has been wrestling with a black eye patch over his left eye due to a broken orbital bone injury. That injury was suffered in a match with Andrade El Idolo where they collided. Bryan would go on to sell that injury during the October 25th AEW Dynamite episode when Okada & Orange Cassidy beat Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli in a tag team match.

As Bryan continued talking about his match with Okada, he predicted an injury for the former IWGP World Champion.

“I’m going to break Okada’s right arm. Then we’re going to see how good he is because the true test of how good somebody is, you take away their best weapon and then you see how good they are.”

“You can take away my arm, you can take away my eye, and I’m still better than 99.9% of the wrestlers on planet Earth. Okada, I’m going to break your arm and take away your best weapon and let’s see if you’re even in the top 50%.”

Before Bryan Danielson gets to Wrestle Kingdom in 2024, he will be in action at AEW Worlds End on December 30th when he teams with Claudio Castagnoli, Mark Briscoe & Daniel Garcia against Jay Lethal, Brody King, Jay White & Rush in an eight-man tag team match.