Bryan Danielson wants to be clear about how much creative say he has on “AEW Collision” because he believes wrestling fans have got it wrong.
“I think people think I have more creative input than I actually do,” Danielson said. “It’s a Tony Khan-run show, so he books these shows. He is the person doing most of the creative. I would say is he doing at least upward of 80 percent of the creative on these shows, if not more.”
Collision, AEW’s Saturday night show in primetime on TNT, began as a vehicle to help feature CM Punk as he returned to the company for its first episode on June 17 and he had a say in the show’s creative.
Danielson, 42, returned to the AEW early from a broken arm for All Out on Sept. 3 after Punk was fired for cause because of a backstage incident with Jack Perry the week prior at All In in London.
Danielson, who will face Zack Sabre Jr. at the WrestleDream pay-per-view on Sunday (8 p.m., Bleacher Report) has since taken over Punk’s role as a Collision headliner and become a sounding board for Khan — AEW’s president — and the key wrestler in the locker room.
But he is not dictating creative for the show.
“He [Khan] runs things by me, sometimes,” Danielson said. “Sometimes he doesn’t. He runs such a crazy schedule that sometimes we don’t get a chance to talk during the week. So I’m just as surprised as everyone else when I see what’s on Collision that week.”
Danielson described their conversation about creative as Khan telling him what he thinking about doing for Collision and him either affirming his boss’s instincts or offering an alternative or tweak.
Khan and Danielson have forged a strong bond. He has said Danielson is the person he would want control of the shows turned over to if he wasn’t able to be there for some reason.
“I might say, ‘That’s great’, which is mostly 80 percent of the time I say that’s a great idea.” Danielson said. “Others times I’ll be like, ‘Oh, what if we change it a little bit to this?’ Mostly, I’m just kind of a sounding board for Tony’s ideas and other talents’ ideas, too.”
Danielson sees himself as more of a refiner of ideas than someone who is going to lay out a months-long story arc.
He described his pitches as things that come to him that he needs “to get out of my head”, so he passes by Khan.
“This is the secret I don’t want to reveal,” Danielson said. “I’m actually not very creative. I’m good at filtering ideas. I’m not the person you want to put, ‘OK here’s a blank page.’ No. I’d be like ‘Uhhhhh.’”
All of this added responsibility comes at a time when Danielson is in the process of winding down his full-time wrestling career.
He made a promise to his daughter Birdie that he would do so by the time she turns 7 years old, which will happen in May.
Danielson said finding an outlet for his creative ideas is gonna be the hard part when he is done in the ring on a weekly basis.
“I have these creative thoughts in my head,” he said. “I need to express them somehow. I’m gonna have to have something else to do as far as expressing my creativity.”
Danielson’s goal is to limit his work travel as much as possible, something he said is just as taxing on his body as what happens in the ring. That is the only thing “certain” about the next stage of his career so a full-time creative role feels less likely.
He would consider being an advisor of sorts, noting so much of what happens when he’s done is still up in the air.
“I’m open to anything because I don’t know exactly what it looks like,” Danielson said. “I don’t know exactly what it looks like for me to be done full-time wrestling. We as a family don’t have a great idea of what that looks like. I don’t have a great idea of what that looks like. I don’t know if Tony has a great idea of what that looks like.”
On working with Jade Cargill and how much potential she has left to unlock
“There is so much. She has such a great work ethic. She has so much athletic potential and she has so much personality. She is almost the opposite of me. I picked up on the wrestling really quick, but it was very hard for me to develop a personality. In a lot of ways she presented herself as more of a star than I do still and this is my wrestling 24 years.
“The hard part is getting the reps and getting training she needs, getting to go out there. We don’t have a ton of live events in AEW and that sort of thing. I was nothing but impressed with her attitude, work ethic, with her ability to learn things. Whatever she does, wherever she goes, I think she’s gonna do really well.”
On what Edge possibly joining AEW would mean
“He has a great mind for wrestling. He has a great passion for wrestling and he has a lot to teach a lot of the younger generation. One of the things that I think about his generation and younger is they have a real desire to give back. I have a real desire to give back. He has a real desire to give back. Christian has a real desire to give back. Having people like that in your locker only benefits the entire company.
