Bryan Danielson said on Sunday night that Ricky Starks had “carried” him in their strap match at AEW All Out.
The veteran also spoke about his future in wrestling, commenting that balancing family life had become difficult.
At the All Out press conference, Danielson was asked how he was able to compete in such a physical match so soon after sustaining a severe fracture. He said:
This is outside of our stories and what we do. He carried me through that match tonight. And I’m good at certain things, I mean, I’m good at a decent amount of things and I’m confident in saying that. I can fire up, I can do all these things, but he was the one who carried me through that match. And so, I’m just, that’s what I’m gonna say.
Later, he added that the match had included “smoke and mirrors” to get him through. However, he did confirm that doctors within and outside the company had cleared him to do the match.
I’ve talked about this before. Magicians don’t necessarily reveal their secrets, but because we have the best fans in the world here at AEW and people are legitimately concerned for my safety, I will pull back the curtain a little bit in this.
There was a lot of smoke and mirrors tonight and I was in no danger whatsoever, other than the regular danger that you could do getting a hip toss, but I didn’t even throw a strike with my right arm, and I don’t think anybody noticed.
Danielson also spoke about his future. Noting that his daughter was six years old, he revealed that she had asked him whether he would be at home every day when she was seven:
She says to me things like this, “Daddy, you’re going to be done wrestling when I when I’m turned seven, right? You’re going to be home every day when I turn seven.”
And that’s, that’s really hard. That’s really hard to turn down, right? I have been very fortunate to have this thing that I love that I do, a huge part of my life for 23-plus years…Parenting is hard, regardless of what you do.
All of that to say, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do…If you can figure out this little jigsaw puzzle or whatever it is of how to balance running a wrestling company with two kids and being able to go to their soccer games or going to go to my daughter’s dance recitals or going to any of that kind of stuff — I mean, those are just puzzles to figure out or sometimes the pieces don’t fit and then I’ve had a good run and it might be time to move on. You know what I mean?
There was a near-miss as Danielson left the desk when he nearly tripped. He briefly returned to the microphone to joke:
Imagine I do that strap match and then I get hurt walking off a stage. That would be my life.
