Bryan Danielson Names “Kofi-Mania” As Favorite WWE Moment In His Career

When it comes to what he enjoyed most as Daniel Bryan in WWE, Bryan Danielson is going with “Kofi-Mania” as the favorite thing he did in his WWE career.

For many wrestlers, winning a WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 30 like Bryan Danielson did (as Daniel) in 2014 would be the best thing they did during a lengthy WWE run. However, the current #1 contender for the AEW World Title is going for a WrestleMania loss five years later.

Going into 2019, Daniel Bryan was the WWE Champion on the Smackdown brand that was carrying around his own unique version of the title that was 100% sustainable organic hemp and carved from a naturally-fallen oak. It’s because Bryan was a heel that liked to preach about protecting the Earth while dressing down the audience.

Kofi Kingston emerged as Bryan’s WWE Title at WrestleMania 35 in 2019 after a lot of twists & turns just like Bryan’s journey five years earlier. While Bryan and Kofi didn’t get to main event WrestleMania 35, they would go on to have arguably the most memorable moment of the event when Kofi beat Bryan to become the WWE Champion for the first time. It was dubbed “Kofi-Mania” as Kofi celebrated with his New Day buddies Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi’s kids.

In a lengthy feature article on The Ringer, Bryan said that Kofi-Mania was his favorite match in WWE while praising Kofi for being a great person.

“To me, the whole thing was magic. And you look at the live events, like the number of shows that he did for WWE, the amount of TV time that he filled in every time, going out there and always having a positive attitude and all that kind of stuff. What a great human being, you know what I mean? Like I said, it was my favorite match. I think the whole thing was my favorite part of my WWE career.”

As he continued, Bryan Danielson added that he was also demoralized when Kofi lost the WWE Title in about 10 seconds to Brock Lesnar in October 2019.

“And conversely, the most demoralized I ever was, was seeing him lose it to Brock Lesnar the way that he did.”

During his WWE run from 2010 to 2021, Bryan Danielson wrestled as Daniel Bryan. He had to retire for two years in the middle of it due to concussions, but he was cleared to compete again in 2018, which led to him winning the WWE Title for a final time.

Bryan Danielson chose to leave WWE in 2021 when his contract expired and joined All Elite Wrestling. This Sunday at Revolution, Danielson will get his chance to become AEW World Champion when he challenges MJF in a 60-Minute Ironman Match in the main event.