Daniel Bryan’s WWE contract expires later this year, and he has previously made it known he no longer intends to be a full-time wrestler. While he has stated he never intends to retire fully, he is now involved in SmackDown’s creative direction and is behind Cesaro and Apollo Crews’ pushes. So given that, many people believe he may decide to concentrate on that aspect of the business. However, in a new interview, he has discussed several wrestlers he still wants to face, and a number of them don’t work for WWE.
When you look at the AEW’s or whatever it is, somebody like Jungle Boy or MJF or Darby Allin, those guys are really interesting to me. When you look at NXT, he’s not young, but I’ve always wanted to wrestle Kushida. That guy’s great. Kyle O’Reilly and I, I don’t know if we’ve ever wrestled. I’ve always wanted to do a singles match with him because he’s gotten so, so good. Finn Balor and I have wrestled on the independents once or twice, and I’d love to do a match with him in WWE.
In Ring of Honor, there’s a guy named Jonathan Gresham. He’s fantastic. I’d love to wrestle Jonathan Gresham.
I’ve never wrestled Matt Riddle one-on-one. I’ve never wrestled Ricochet one-on-one. I’ve wrestled Johnny Gargano one-on-one before I came to WWE, but it was mostly a comedy match where I got my pants pulled down, and my butt was probably out for a full five minutes.
William Regal’s son, Bailey Matthews, just debuted on NXT UK. I’d love to do a match with him. William Regal has helped me so much in my career.Daniel Bryan
For some of those matches to have any chance of ever taking place, Bryan would need to leave WWE, so he will have a big decision to make over the next six months. However, if he does make that decision, Bryan Danielson would be welcomed with open arms into any wrestling promotion in the world.
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