All good things must eventually come to an end.
In one year's time, the legendary in-ring career of "The American Dragon" appears to be coming to its' conclusion.
As noted, Bryan Danielson announced on AEW television last week that he will be winding down his career when his daughter turns seven, noting he promised his six-year old girl that he would do so.
During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, the pro wrestling legend addressed his career coming to an end in a year, as well as the recent AEW departure of CM Punk.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On CM Punk's AEW departure: "In any job, when you lose somebody who’s very important, or you lose somebody you really like working with, that’s hard. But everyone keeps doing the job. And any time there is loss or controversy or struggle inside an organization, it’s a chance to bring people closer. It’s also a chance to divide people. So you have this thing where you can use struggle to make your life worse, or you can use struggle to make your life better. When I lost my father, I came out on the backside. I was worse. Struggling with my depression, I’ve come out of it better. So how you approach something and how you learn from something, that’s what makes the difference."
On him announcing that he has one year left in his career: "I don’t think I’ll ever reach a point where I declare I’m absolutely done. I want the ability to show up when I want to show up. Terry Funk is someone I always admired. He retired a million times, but he loved it so much he couldn’t help but keep doing it. And he did it when he wanted. For me, it might be a couple times a year, or it might be years between matches. I didn’t get a chance to do All In this year. I would like that chance next year. We have a show, WrestleDream, this October 1 in Seattle where I’m wrestling Zack Sabre Jr. If we have another next year in Seattle? Maybe it will be then. My daughter turns seven in May, so it’s a good time to close down the shop."
Check out the complete Bryan Danielson interview at SI.com.
