Bryan Danielson Reveals One Major Reason He Signed With AEW

Whether he's headlining WrestleMania or kicking heads in, AEW's Bryan Danielson has always been one of the more interesting wrestling stars of the modern era for his views both in and outside of the ring.

That was proven again in a Q&A with Sports Illustrated's Justin Barrasso, where Danielson revealed one of the reasons he joined AEW last year while discussing whether recent real-life events had made him want to wrestle more or less.

"It's interesting, I've always felt a certain level of guilt in pro wrestling," Danielson said. "I also love this thing so much. We actually had a really good conversation about this a couple weeks ago in the locker room. Yes, wrestling does help people, but I still do it for selfish reasons. The Texas shooting is horrible. It almost makes me go, 'What am I doing right now? I should be home with my kids.' This can be hard to explain.

"I read this great book, "Four Thousand Weeks", and I was just telling my friend about it. The book says it's about time management, but it's actually a book about philosophy. The average lifespan is only 4,000 weeks. If you look at where I'm at now, I'm 2,000 weeks in, and I've got 2,000 weeks left. With all the craziness in the world, do I want to spend the rest of those weeks entertaining people? Or do I want to spend more time with my family? That's actually one of the reasons why I chose AEW. It allows me the ability to have a little more freedom with my wrestling and wrestle different people with different styles, but it's also to spend more time with my family."

This Sunday at AEW Double or Nothing, Bryan will team with Blackpool Combat Club teammate Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, Santana, and Ortiz to take on Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, 2.0, and Daniel Garcia of the Jericho Appreciation Society in the first-ever Anarchy in the Arena match.