Bryan Danielson Almost Signed With ROH In 2018

Bryan Danielson is one of the most decorated performers in the history of this business. The American Dragon has been a part of almost every major wrestling promotion in the United States.

Danielson got the attention of WWE due to his incredible work in Ring of Honor. Danielson retired from in-ring competition in 2016, only to return to action two years later at WrestleMania 34.

The AEW star recently sat down with Inside The Ropes for a new interview. He revealed that he considered joining ROH after his WWE contract came up in 2018, but was convinced by his lawyer against making the move.

“It was really interesting. My contract with WWE was up in 2018 and I was considering going to Ring of Honor and I was talking to The Young Bucks and I was talking to Cody [Rhodes] just to kind of see — all their contracts were up with Ring of Honor and I was like, ‘What are you guys gonna do?’ Because even my lawyer, who doesn’t know anything about pro wrestling, he said, ‘Hey, I don’t think you’d wanna sign with Ring of Honor if these Young Bucks aren’t going because they’ve got this YouTube show. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, called Being The Elite’ and it’s essentially the driver for the popularity of Ring of Honor at the time, right? And so those guys go away, we don’t know if Ring of Honor will nearly still be as popular and then with Cody’s contract coming up, if they leave and Cody leaves, what will Ring of Honor’s popularity be like? So that was a part of the discussion.”

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Danielson ultimately resigned with WWE and stayed with the company for another three years. He left the company to join Tony Khan’s AEW after his contract expired in 2021. In March 2022, Tony Khan announced that acquisition of ROH, bringing several ROH originals under AEW’s payroll.

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