Bryan Danielson On WrestleMania 37 Main Event – “It Didn’t Mean Anything To Me”

Bryan Danielson is an AEW guy now, but he reflected on his WWE run by saying that main eventing WrestleMania 37 two years ago meant nothing to him.

During his WWE career, Bryan Danielson competed as Daniel Bryan and he got to headline WrestleMania two times. In 2014, he won the WWE Title in the main event of WrestleMania 30.

The main event of WrestleMania 37 in 2021 saw Roman Reigns defending the WWE Universal Title against 2021 Royal Rumble winner Edge and Bryan, who was added to the match in the weeks leading up to it. Reigns won the match thanks to an assist from Jey Uso. Reigns would go on to stack Edge and Bryan on top of eachother, so Reigns pinned them both at the same time.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Bryan Danielson spoke about how the WrestleMania 37 main event meant nothing to him.

“That was a match people enjoyed. It didn’t mean anything to me. I felt nothing. You have to remember—it was our first time back in front of a live crowd [since the start of the pandemic], and we were in front of thousands of people. I felt nothing during that match. I was trying my best, but it felt like I was going through the motions.”

Bryan Danielson is right in saying that it’s a match that people enjoyed. The match was rated ****1/2 by me in the TJR review, which would make it one of the best WrestleMania main events ever in terms of match quality. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave the match the same rating.

“Then I wrestled Roman in the ThunderDome in front of all these screens, and I loved that match. It was the perfect way for me to end my WWE career. Putting together the [WrestleMania] match, I could feel a little bit of my apathy, but that’s happened before and then I walk out there and I feel, ‘This is what I live for.’ That was very weird psychologically.”

The Reigns-Bryan match was on the April 30th, 2021 edition of Smackdown. It was also an outstanding match. Reigns won the match in front of no fans in attendance and Bryan’s WWE contract expired as well. A few months later, Bryan signed with AEW and he’s been there for nearly two years now.

Bryan Danielson will headline AEW Revolution later this evening against Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF) in a 60-Minute Ironman Match.