Bryan Danielson: Wheeler Yuta ‘has so much upside,’ he’s an incredible human

Bryan Danielson believes the sky is the limit for his Blackpool Combat Club protege Wheeler Yuta.

“Wheeler has so much upside,” Danielson told Bleacher Report in an interview published on Thursday. “He’s an incredible human being and that’s the part I really look at with people. If you were to look at me when I was 27, I had a lot of holes in my game.”

Danielson, Yuta, Claudio Castagnoli, and Jon Moxley make up the Blackpool Combat Club in AEW. This Sunday in London will be a big day for the group. At All In, Danielson is challenging Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship. The match has a title vs. career stipulation where Danielson will retire if he loses.

The All In card also includes a London Ladders match for the AEW Trios Championship that Yuta, Castagnoli & PAC have the chance to qualify for. Moxley is currently away from AEW programming after being given some time off.

In the Bleacher Report interview, Danielson said social media criticism makes it hard for younger wrestlers today, but Yuta is doing a great job and having fantastic matches.

“It’s hard to be a TV wrestler now in your 20s because everybody expects so much of you. And then you have social media to criticize anything that you do. If social media was around when I was 26 and they were able to see everything, every promo that I did, I might have to stick my head in the sand,” he said.

“I have a deep empathy for them being criticized so much at this stage. I think Wheeler, from an in-ring standpoint and from a promo standpoint, he’s getting better all the time. He did a match with Rocky Romero on Rampage that was just fantastic. I just think he’s doing a great job.”

Yuta is a three-time ROH Pure Champion. He dropped the title to Lee Moriarty at ROH Death Before Dishonor this July.