Bryan Danielson: I Didn't Speak To CM Punk Before Either Of Us Joined AEW

Bryan Danielson has revealed that he never spoke to CM Punk about signing his contract with AEW before his debut at All Out 2021. The American Dragon competed in his first match outside of WWE in over ten years on Wednesday 22 September, when he faced AEW World Champion Kenny Omega in a 30-minute time limit draw.

Danielson hailed the match as the "biggest match" of his career and it has been praised online by fans for being one of the best AEW Dynamite matches of all time. Prior to his historic debut match in AEW, Danielson spoke to ESPN SportsNation and detailed his excitement for his first match since facing the WWE Universal Champion, Roman Reigns, in his last WWE match. He said: "My entire journey has led me here. In a lot of ways this feels like the biggest match of my career and just the time, setting, person I’m going to be in the ring going against." Despite his close friendship with CM Punk dating back to their time on the independent circuit in the mid-2000s, he has revealed that there was 'next to zero communication' between the pair regarding him signing a contract with AEW.

“As a lot of my friends know, I’m a horrible communicator. I didn’t know about the [CM] Punk stuff until it happened right, but it seemed very fitting. I actually wrote in my book that came out in 2015 that I was sad because I always thought there would be this big WrestleMania moment I would have with CM Punk." Danielson went on to say: "I wrote in my book that it makes me sad that that will most likely never happen, and then now here we are in 2021 and it’s a real possibility. I had heard him say in an interview recently that I hadn’t even thought of but it’s not just me against CM Punk, it’s teaming with CM Punk. He had said something about maybe me and him against The Young Bucks and I was like oh my God, that would be awesome."

H/T Wrestling Inc.