Bryan Danielson Shoots On "Unfair" WWE Releases

Bryan Danielson was interviewed by Ariel Helwani for The MMA Hour ahead of Wednesday's episode of AEW Dynamite, with the conversation touching on all kinds of topics relating to Bryan's life, his interest in mixed martial arts, his career, and more.

When asked for his thoughts on WWE's latest round of talent cuts (the promotion released 18 wrestlers on 4 November), Danielson was measured. The AEW standout said that he felt the situation "wasn't right", suggesting that if WWE are able to fire people on short notice and slap them with a 90-day non-compete clause, the wrestlers should be allowed to give WWE 90 days' notice to resign as well (h/t Fightful):-

"In some ways, I get it. In some ways, I feel like it's not right. It's hard because my father-in-law [John Laurinaitis] is head of talent relations and he is the one who has to call them all. One of the things that I've always had a hard time with, and I've been fired from WWE twice, so I kind of get this; it's one thing if somebody does something bad. If you're under contract and you're not happy with the company, if they can fire you and give you 90 days, you should be able to give them 90 days to be released from your contract. On the flip side, if they're only firing you because of budget cuts when they're profitable than ever, I just don't think that's right."

Danielson, who left WWE after dropping a Universal Title vs. career match to Roman Reigns in April, continued, noting the problems created by WWE's years of talent hoarding and the company's money-first approach:-

"They signed a lot of people behind contracts with AEW started to keep people from going to AEW then they realized, 'AEW can't sign all these people,' so now the people that have too many high-end contracts, if they feel like they are getting paid more than they should be getting paid, they'll let them go. You offered them a contract to be with you for three years, if you overpaid them, that's your bad and you're still a very profitable company. I wish they wouldn't, but I also understand it's business in America. Profits tend to be the most important things for companies You can even talk to the people within the company. I love Vince McMahon and have learned so much from him, but companies are not people. Corporation are their own people but for whatever reason, even good people make decisions that benefit a company that hurt the people that have worked so hard for the company. That's hard on me mentally but it's also the system that has been rewarded financially in the United States."

Sitting out for four months after leaving WWE, Bryan ended up signing a three-year AEW contract and debuting for the promotion at the acclaimed All Out 2021 pay-per-view on 5 September. The Helwani interview saw him claim that Tony Khan's different approach to managing talent was one of the things that factored into this decision:-

"I kind of just accepted that that's what it was, except now I work for AEW. Tony Khan, he's only let go of three people since the pandemic started and they were all disciplinary reasons. Other people, who are no longer with the company, if he didn't want them, their contract expired and they weren't re-signed. That's how he approaches it. Until I saw that and dealt with that, I always thought (WWE's way) was unfair, but 'it's just the way wrestling is and it works,' except Tony Khan came in and he doesn't do that. AEW from a money standpoint makes way less money than WWE. Things like that led me to want to go to AEW as well."

Danielson has continually spoken highly of his time in WWE since joining AEW, including in a lengthy article penned for the Players' Tribute in September. He has asserted, on several occasions, that choosing between WWE and AEW was an incredibly difficult decision, doing so again on The MMA Hour.

This Saturday's Full Gear 2021 will see Danielson face Miro in the finals of AEW's World Title Eliminator tournament.