AEW superstar Brian Danielson was at a crossroads back in 2018, when he was medically cleared by WWE to return to the ring, does he continue his career with WWE, or does he move on to another wrestling company such as Ring of Honor?
Danielson says that he considered making the jump, during an interview with Inside the Ropes, saying that when his contract with WWE was coming up, he had conversations with Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks, whose deals with ROH were expiring around the same time as his.
“It was really interesting, m 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” he said. “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?
“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.”
Danielson re-signed with WWE, made his return to in-ring competition, and then departed in 2021 to sign with AEW.
