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Well, this sucks.
The announcement that Bryan Danielson, professionally known to most fans as Daniel Bryan, will officially retire from being an active performer in professional wrestling on WWE's Raw tonight, is a sad, sobering moment for wrestling fans who hoped he'd resurrect his career and their hopes to live vicariously through his comeback.
For all intents and purposes, the American Dragon is gone.
With his retirement also comes the closing of an important door in professional wrestling.
Professional wrestling's last starving artist will be leaving his canvas behind.
When Bryan Danielson broke into the professional wrestling world, he was a day removed from his High School graduation and left his native Aberdeen, Washington to drive to San Antonio, Texas to follow his dream of being a wrestler under one of the greatest of all time, Shawn Michaels. He had no way of knowing where life was going to take him, because he was doing it because he loved wrestling and anything else was immaterial.
Whether he was under a mask in the TWA, going through one of his several WWE developmental journeys, wrestling on tiny independents in the Northwest, teaming with Low Ki in the ECWA, main eventing Ring of Honor, training and touring for New Japan or making his way up the ladder in WWE by taking every preconceived notion and criticism of his look, his work and his abilities and turning them inside out, there was one signature thing about Daniel Bryan that separated him from just about every wrestler who's come up in the same generation as him.
The love of the art that is professional wrestling.
Sure, we've seen lots of amazing wrestlers and amazing performers. We've seen great promos and we've seen highspots, but if there was one guy who could step into any situation, whether it was a Wrestlemania 30 main event against Randy Orton and Batista, an independent bout against Kamala, or a 47 minute marathon against Paul London (still one of the best, if not the best match in ROH history), Bryan's best asset wasn't his stamina or his performance or his mind for the business, it was his heart.
Here was a guy who had a ready-made gig for life in ROH at some point and left to go tour Europe and recreate himself. Here was a guy who never ever caused drama or a problem backstage anywhere he went...except the one night Triple H infuriated him by stopping a match for injury. Here was a guy who was as befuddled as WWE management as to why the fans pretty much rioted for him, hijacked the shows for him and demanded that he, not anyone else, be their hero of choice. It was because he had love, a pure love, for his art.
Bryan was that last guy to truly explore the corners of the wrestling globe to piecemeal together what made him so great. A little lucha here, a little European here, a little MMA and Catch here, a little WWE style there. He soaked in knowledge from Rudy Boy Gonzales, from Shawn Michaels, from William Regal, from Vince McMahon, from everyone he worked with and took it all and turned on the work ethic.
It sounds insane to say there will never be anyone like him ever again, but the reality is, there won't be. Wrestlers don't scour the globe now looking to get better. They move to Orlando and hope they get noticed. It's a different world. We are lucky Bryan Danielson came in during the world that came before today's generation of talents.
To watch a Bryan Danielson match on the independents was the pro wrestling equivalent of getting to watch Rembrandt doodle. Lots of wrestlers know how to work the holds and chain wrestle, but fewer and fewer of them knew how to make the small things become major storyline points in their performances. Here was a guy who worked an entire PWG bout against Cesaro, pretty much working only a headlock. Here was a guy who made a catch phrase out of telling the referee "I have until five!" when breaking on the ropes - BREAKING on THE ROPES! Here was a guy who promised he had perfected the most deadly move ever and no would escape it...and it was the small package. What was elementary to any other wrestler was spectacular when Danielson was involved.
Bryan was the guy who didn't get into this to be a billionaire or a TV star or an actor. He just loved wrestling and wanted to perform at it. He was never driven by locker room politics or being the top star. He was about the performance. He was the equivalent of the actor who could have been a Hollywood sensation but remained on the Broadway stage, because that's where the true blood and guts, the bone marrow, the truth in the performance was. Somehow, he still landed in WWE but if he hadn't, Danielson would have been just as happy living the Bohemian lifestyle of an independent wrestler.
Bryan may have been born in Aberdeen but he was home wherever three ropes created a squared circle. Whether he was supposed to brawl with Takeshi Morishima or wrestle a 2 hour, 45 minute match with Austin Aries (that didn't happen but it almost did!) or just be silly with Kane, Bryan had the solution of how to handle it just right, to get himself over, make his opponents mean more and make the audience fall in love with him. Everyone would have told you he would never be a star nationally but there he was, headlining Wrestlemania 30 with electricity running up and down the streets of New Orleans in jubilation after he won. Had The Undertaker's streak not ended and shocked a good portion of the crowd into being numb, you would have been able to have lit up the entire Eastern Seaboard with the energy in the Superdome that night.
The secret to Bryan Danielson wasn't that he put the effort in when the cameras were rolling, but everywhere. 17 fans at FIP in Florida? No problem. The Inoki Dojo in California with a 100 fans, maybe, there? Done. Making the Murphy Rec Center in Philadelphia a historic location when it came to wrestling history. Done. He was the master, even if he didn't want to admit it. Danielson didn't want the acclaim. He wanted to perform and perform at the most elite level possible.
Hell, he was the guy who once told me, on record, that it was harder to wrestle Roderick Strong in a Ring of Honor main event then it was to enter WWE's Hell in A Cell. He loved the DNA of professional wrestling and had a proficiency for making every moment, every stance, every hold, every spot, every breath he took in the ring mean something.
Here was a guy who just recently, was still tracking down tapes from Mexico and The UK and studying and watching and training and waiting. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was a hermit, apart from the one thing he truly loved to do, the thing that defined his adult life, that registered within his soul, preparing for the moment when he'd be able to show everyone how much he loved the business once again.
Sadly, it's a moment that will never come.
Life will go on, both in the wrestling business and for Bryan Danielson, but neither will ever be the same. The last year of waiting and waiting and waiting to be told that you are good to go when you already know in your heart of hearts that you are indeed good to go had to have been an incredible level of frustration. However, the reality is that between concern for his health, concern for legal issues WWE is now facing and his undeniable history of problematic injuries created a perfect storm and that storm has grounded the American Dragon for good.
So, have no doubt, today sucks.
But it's also the start of a new chapter for Bryan Danielson and trust me, in this retirement, it's the wrestling business that will be poorer a year from now. He'll always have his work ethic and his love for the game and if he's that good and that passionate for pro wrestling, when he finds his next passion, he's going to change that world, too. Bryan Danielson will find a new passion. Pro wrestling will never find another Bryan Danielson.
So, you mourn your hero today. Cheer for his accomplishments and be happy he's going home to a woman that loves him, having made more money then he ever intended to make and will live to dream and create another day, somewhere else. He's earned it.
As for me, I'm about to go watch The American Dragon wrestle Paul London at ROH's Epic Encounter and for the next 47 minutes, I'll be smiling and remembering what it was like watching him from the bleachers in the Murphy Rec Center when it seemed names like Danielson, London, CM Punk, Low Ki and Samoa Joe were poised to change the wrestling world. And you know what, they did.
And Bryan Danielson should go home with his head held high and know that he's walking out in Seattle tonight the benchmark for what passion in professional wrestling is.
Wrestling's last starving artist is hopefully satiated by that. If he isn't, he should be.
Here's to the American Dragon, Bryan Danielson. Long may he reign.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com. He's been covering Bryan Danielson's career since he was a rookie under a mask teaming with Spanky for the TWA in Texas.
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