Is Bryan Danielson leaving Ring of Honor?
GG has told me on numerous occasions that the one problem with him watching Ring of Honor is that he doesn’t feel like purchasing DVDs monthly and spending 20 dollars per DVD to keep up with storylines. He waited for TV. Well ROH got TV and in my humble opinion, it’s been rather lackluster.
The other reason GG is disinterested in ROH for the most part is because the one guy he wants to watch is “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson over anybody else. This opinion is shared by many others. I know people who attend ROH shows and watch DVDs just to watch AmDrag matches.
Dave Meltzer said in this past week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter than Danielson has not signed a new deal yet. Besides that, Danielson has been training with Randy Couture’s camp. It was revealed on an edition of Figure Four Daily by Danielson that he had done a few Jiu-Jitsu exhibitions and MMA fights, but now he seems to be taking at least the training portion seriously. Danielson has told people he wants to go to Thailand to train in Muay Thai. That’s pretty cool. That’s like me going to Germany to eat German Chocolate Cake – despite “Superstar” Billy Graham allegedly being sweeter; I won’t eat him.
Ring of Honor just lost his champion Nigel McGuinness (he dropped the belt to Jerry Lynn in his last match), who went down due to injury, and now they are about to lose their most popular star in Danielson. Will Ring of Honor survive losing two of their top guys so quickly?
The last time this happened was in the first quarter of 2007. ROH lost a horde of main event talent when they became exclusive to TNA or signed with WWE. Samoa Joe, Homicide, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries, and Colt Cabana were all top main eventers and ROH had to scramble to make new top guys. Samoa Joe was the closest ROH had to a “heart”, and Danielson has firmly etched himself as that, specially since he’s been there since show #1.
So will this hurt the company? In my opinion – Oh yeah. Although I’m not as picky as GG and a few others, I must have my Dragon matches on my ROH DVDs. I went to the ROH show in Orlando specifically to see Danielson wrestle. He is pound for pound the best worker on the indies. There IS WWE interest and Danielson has lots of friends in high places in WWE (Regal, Shawn Michaels, etc). If ROH loses him, they might as well count the days.
P.S. This begins the first of many “yet to be titled” columns written by me. Enjoy!
So what’s your prediction? Does he sign the contract? Or does he become the wrestling version of a nomad?
He’s gonna go do his Muay Thai first and when he returns, if WWE is interested, thats where hes going. He’s def taking time off.
Unless he fights MMA, why even do Muay Thai. Oh yah, he’s the wrestling nomad. I forgot.
He’ll do anything as long as he’s entertained. His parents own a ranch in Washington. He can always go back there if hes broke.
Not much left to enjoy no