Bryan Danielson believes talent and medical teams should work alongside each other more.
During his post-show media scrum appearance, Bryan Danielson was asked about a spot in the Will Ospreay versus Kenny Omega match. Ospreay hit Omega with a Tiger Driver ’91, which resulted in plenty of concern from fans due to the apparent danger of the move.
Danielson was asked to share his perspective on a move like that being smart or too risky. He said he isn’t the best to ask since he’s done some ill-advised things in his own career, but you still have to skate that line in matches.
“I remember when I was in WWE and John Cena tore his pec taking a hip toss. And so there are these things, and I go and talk to our doctors. Legitimately, before matches and I say, ‘What do you think about this? Can I do this?’ and they are very frank with me. ‘No you can’t do that’ or ‘Yes, you can do this, but only under certain circumstances.’ And I think for the safety of the performers, it’s the best thing for AEW to do that same kind of thing.
“I saw the Tiger Driver ’98, whatever you want to call it — that stuff does scare me because the potential for injury is so great. And I know specifically from a Kenny Omega — him and Will Ospreay are just fantastic — was it worth it? Did it actually make the match better, or is it just risky and part of their career? I don’t have the answer for that. We all did things, I did things to get noticed that I wouldn’t do today. You have to balance those things and those are two very driven men about wanting to put on the best pro wrestling matches they can. I don’t think it’s my responsibility to say who should do what because I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my career, but I think we should be working with our medical staff to approve certain things.”
Later in the scrum, Danielson was asked about his retirement strengthening his resolve to say no to certain things.
“It’s interesting, I think sometimes, it strengthens my resolve to say go. But when I got my last concussion at Anarchy In The Arena last year, it was very much, ‘OK, we are waiting.’ And AEW was great, Tony was great. That was a very hard time for the company, I got hurt, Adam Cole had gotten hurt, [CM] Punk had gotten hurt,” Danielson noted. “There were a lot of injuries. I have been in places where they’ve rushed people back from concussions. This place is not that. I am very grateful to be here and I’m very grateful that our doctors encouraged me, ‘No, we need to wait until absolutely we know for sure that you’re OK.’”
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