Bryan Danielson says AEW Revolution may be ‘the biggest challenge’ of his career

Bryan Danielson says that Sunday’s Iron Man match against MJF at Revolution is possibly ‘the biggest challenge’ he’s faced in his career. 

Danielson spoke with SI.com for an interview released on Thursday and commented on the unique challenges that his match on the pay-per-view presents. 

Danielson said:

“We’re going to be following a lot of great stuff, including the Mox-‘Hangman’ Texas Deathmatch. The promoters from yesteryear would say that you don’t follow blood with wrestling, but that’s exactly what we’re doing. So it presents those types of challenges. To me, that’s exciting. This is maybe the biggest challenge I’ve put in front of myself in my entire career. I can’t think of anything else with more pressure mentally or physically.” 

This will be the first Iron Man match that either MJF or Danielson has taken part in. Danielson continued to say that he feels after Sunday night, MJF will have the confidence to do anything in wrestling. 

“After this, Max will have the confidence he can do anything in wrestling,” says Danielson. “60 minutes, 40 minutes, 20 minutes, there will be no doubt.”

Danielson also spoke about his WrestleMania 37 main event match against Roman Reigns and Edge in 2021. He described feeling as though he was just “going through the motions” during it. 

“That was a match people enjoyed,” says Danielson. “It didn’t mean anything to me. I felt nothing. You have to remember—it was our first time back in front of a live crowd [since the start of the pandemic], and we were in front of thousands of people. I felt nothing during that match. I was trying my best, but it felt like I was going through the motions. Then I wrestled Roman in the ThunderDome in front of all these screens, and I loved that match. It was the perfect way for me to end my WWE career. Putting together the [WrestleMania] match, I could feel a little bit of my apathy, but that’s happened before and then I walk out there and I feel, ‘This is what I live for.’ That was very weird psychologically.

“Something was wrong. It was very glaring to me. There was one match, I was super sick when I wrestled Matt Menard on Dynamite last year. It was a pretty short match, though it did go through a commercial break, and I just wanted to get through it. Turns out, I went out there and had a blast. I went to the back, and for 30 more minutes, I felt great. Then I started feeling horrible again. The surprise for me is always when a match isn’t fun. I’ll be very surprised if I wrestle MJF for an hour and I don’t have fun.”

This will be Danielson’s sixth pay-per-view since joining AEW. He defeated Miro in the finals of the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament at Full Gear 2021 but hasn’t won on pay-per-view since. He was defeated by Jon Moxley at Revolution 2022, the Blackpool Combat Club lost Anarchy in the Arena at Double or Nothing 2022, he lost to Chris Jericho at All Out 2022, and was involved in the fatal four-way ROH title match at Full Gear 2022 won by Chris Jericho. 

Sunday will be MJF’s 15th match on AEW pay-per-view including Fyter Fest and Fight for the Fallen in 2019 before Dynamite debuted. He is 5-4 in singles matches, 1-2 in tag matches, and 1-1 in multi-person matches.