Bryan Danielson Reveals Major Moment In WWE Career Wasn’t Supposed To Happen

WWE/AEW

AEW’s Bryan Danielson says a major moment in his WWE career was not originally planned to happen when it did.

While he has now been a part of AEW for over four years, Bryan Danielson carved out a Hall of Fame worthy career in WWE across an 11-year spell – winning four WWE World Championships, Intercontinental, United States and Tag Team Titles, as well as a Money in the Bank win in 2011.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Danielson reflected on his ascent to the main event scene of WWE, stating his belief that “fortunate circumstances” were more at play than anything else in his rise up the card.

Revealing that his first World Heavyweight Championship win at TLC 2011 was not supposed to happen the way it did, Danielson discussed the chain of events from Money in the Bank 2011 to the beginning of the YES! Movement – which propelled him to become a WrestleMania main eventer.

He said:

“”I was in a very fortunate position, even winning the title. I wasn’t even supposed to. I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. “The thing that whole led to me Yes-ing was I had won the Money in the Bank, and the only reason I won the Money in the Bank is because they had two Money in the Banks. They had one for Raw and one for SmackDown. They knew for sure they wanted Alberto Del Rio to win the Raw one. The SmackDown one, they thought they wanted Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes or me on the day of the show, they all decided it was me because they didn’t want a bad guy to win the Money in the Bank on the SmackDown side, because they had a bad guy winning it on the Raw side. But the most important thing was the Alberto Del Rio thing.

“But then they gave me the Money in the Bank, and they’re like, oh no. Now Daniel Bryan has the Money in the Bank, and nobody at that point had cashed in and lost. And so, you know, we did a couple things with it for a couple weeks, and then it was off TV for like six weeks, or whatever it is.

“Then they inserted me in a story with Big Show and Mark Henry, which got me on TV or whatever it is. But it was great. It put me in a story, but then Mark Henry got hurt. This was at the TLC pay per view in 2011. Mark Henry gets hurt. I wasn’t scheduled to be at the pay-per-view. I had a Walmart signing that same day in Baltimore with Kelly Kelly, and came over to the building because Brie was there; I think Brie had a match on the show.

“So I was there, and then Vince found out that I was there, and then Daniel Bryan’s here, and then it’s like, oh! Because I had been involved in this thing with Mark Henry and Big Show. Okay, well Mark Henry’s hurt, so they had to do like a real smoke and mirrors type chair match, and then Mark gets mad at Big Show. And then, just because I happened to be there, it’ll be shocking that Daniel Bryan comes in and cashes in on Big Show.

“So even that was just a circumstance. If I hadn’t been booked, if Walmart hadn’t asked to have two WWE wrestlers sign at that on that particular day, that whole thing would have never happened. And Vince’s direction to me was go out there and celebrate like you just won the Super Bowl. Then that’s how the yes thing happened.

“A lot of these are just circumstances. If they had let me at WrestleMania go out there and wrestle Sheamus for 20 minutes, and then he beats me, I don’t know if it would have stayed as hot. I mean, it was more angering that they just had him beat me in 18 seconds with one move. So it’s like all of these things are things beyond my control. I have nothing to do with any of these things. And they’re just these weird little gifts, right?”

Before Bryan Danielson reached the main event of WWE, he began as The Miz’s rookie in NXT, a role in which he purposely cut his hair for according to the “American Dragon” – click here for his explanation why.