The Problem With Daniel Bryan That No One Wants To Talk About

The problem with Daniel Bryan that no one wants to talk about is two-fold.

1. If Daniel's priority is NJPW, not AEW, then Tony Khan's company may not necessarily get the best of him. This would depend on the terms of his contract (and which side gets the first refusal on bookings), but particularly during G1 season, Bryan is going to hop across the Pacific and go missing from Dynamite and Rampage for weeks on end. We've seen recently how detrimental PAC's constant movement between the United States and his UK home has been for his booking patterns. While Bryan admittedly outstrips the Brit as an attraction, their situations are similar.

2. NJPW isn't NJPW anymore. Shingo Takagi, Will Ospreay, and others will feature on many a Match of the Year list in 2021, as they should, but the decline in Gedo's booking over the past couple of years is well-documented. The pandemic has amplified issues like the abundance of tired western tropes, which existed long before COVID took hold. EVIL's ascension was as unforgivable as this year's cannibalisation of the IWGP Heavyweight Title's legacy. The golden era is long dead.

It sounds like a dream scenario, Bryan buzzing back and forth between AEW and NJPW, but it isn't as utopian as it first seems. While this deal would almost certainly yield more high-level matches than renewing with WWE, Bryan taking time off from AEW to work for a promotion three years removed from its vintage.

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