10 Best Wrestlers Of 2024
3. Bryan Danielson
Bryan Danielson could have comfortably been part of lists like this for every year of his full time career, and it's only fitting that if that really has come to an end, it's done so with yet more glowing praise.
A regular across Dynamite, Collision and pay-per-view, the 'American Dragon' waved away obvious injury niggles to embark on a banger-after-banger run against seemingly any and everybody he asked for. Along the way, he assembled match-of-the-year candidates against Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr and Swerve Strickland.
And in the latter, at long last, he became AEW World Champion.
A middling run had the most epic of beginnings and ends - Jon Moxley wasn't in the ring for Danielson's Wembley celebration at All In, nor did he need to be as the rest of the BCC finished the All Out hatchet job at WrestleDream. The jury's out on how much of a retirement this exit even is, but the blood, sweat and tears of everything he accomplished during his last few months marked what the Dragon himself would presumably consider a perfect sendoff.