Bryan Danielson: Main eventing WrestleMania 30 ‘doesn’t mean that much to me’

Because of the circumstances surrounding the moment, headlining WWE WrestleMania 30 doesn’t mean that much to Bryan Danielson.

Danielson reached the summit of WWE when he won the company’s World Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 30 in 2014. It will always stand out to fans as one of the highlights of Danielson’s career, but the moment does not hold much sentimental value for Danielson.

“I main evented WrestleMania 30 with WWE. And honestly, it doesn’t mean that much to me,” he told Sun Sport in a new interview. “My sister and my niece got to come into the ring, right? But I was about to marry my wife the following Friday and they wouldn’t let her come down to the ring. They didn’t want her to be in the thing. And then on top of that, it wasn’t just that — it was like, I was going through a ton of neck pain and all these other things. So these things that seem like cool moments to a viewer, there’s all this other stuff going on in a wrestler’s life or in a performer’s life that could make that moment not as valuable to them as it is to the people viewing.”

Danielson reiterated that the match that meant the most to him in his career is facing Swerve Strickland in the main event of AEW All In 2024 at Wembley Stadium. Having his wife Brie Bella and their kids Birdie and Buddy there is a big part of what made that night so special for Danielson. He also loved seeing how much Strickland had grown as a performer since the match they had against each other in October 2023.

“So I would say that at All In, it’s the whole circumstance,” Danielson said, “It’s knowing that my career’s coming to an end. It’s knowing that this might be the last time that my kids ever get to see me wrestle. It’s them being there. It’s the crowd reaction. I mean, the U.K. crowds are just the best, right? It’s all of those things. It’s Swerve Strickland’s performance.”

Danielson won the AEW World Championship in that match before later dropping the title to Jon Moxley, who was dethroned by Hangman Page earlier this month at All In 2025. Danielson played a role in that match by helping to neutralize interference by the Death Riders.

Despite getting physically involved in Page vs. Moxley, Danielson says he is not back as an active performer. He’s retired as a full-time wrestler but has not fully closed the book on ever competing again.