Bryan Danielson Suffered “Pretty Bad” Neck Injury During AEW Run

Bryan Danielson was worried he wouldn’t be able to go out on his own terms.

At WrestleDream 2024, Bryan Danielson’s full-time career and his AEW World Championship reign came to an end.

Despite the finality of the moment, Danielson remained adamant throughout 2024 that he would wrestle again after healing up. However, it seems things aren’t quite that simple.

After staying largely out of the spotlight, Bryan Danielson recently admitted his neck is “wrecked,” and “enough is enough.”

Bryan Danielson Suffered Injury Against Will Ospreay

During a new interview with the Daily Star, Danielson reiterated that he’s all but retired, even if he doesn’t want to admit he’ll never wrestle again. The star went on to reveal that he hurt his neck “pretty bad” during his Dynasty match with Will Ospreay, and that caused him to struggle from that point until his last match at WrestleDream.

“I don’t want to 100% say I’ve called it a day. I don’t want to put those restrictions on myself. But y’know, it’s mostly calling it a day.

The reality is that I had originally planned for it to be kind of the end and was hoping that it wouldn’t end kind of the way it did. But it turned out to be a blessing in the sense of, the last 6 months from april until October were really physically hard for me.

I’d hurt my neck pretty bad wrestling Will Ospreay at Dynasty, and that last 6 months I wasn’t even sure I could get through it. So it was actually a real blessing in the sense of you think “oh that doesn’t sound great”, but what it meant was, when I was done, I was ready to be done.”

During a recent interview, Tony Khan revealed that he speaks with Danielson almost every day and works closely with the star. Khan described the former World Champion as a “big part of his office,” but said he would like to see him wrestle again.

H/t to Wrestle Purists