AEW star reveals why he was surprised WWE chose him to wrestle Roman Reigns at WrestleMania

AEW star Bryan Danielson recently took a short trip down memory lane to discuss how 2021 has panned out for him.

From fighting Roman Reigns and Edge for the Universal Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 37 to challenging for the AEW World title, Danielson had a peculiar year in the history of his pro wrestling career.

The American Dragon has been fortunate enough to have his head held high on his way out of Vince McMahon's company. It's worth noting that WWE purposefully books their stars to lose more often to diminish their star power before they leave the promotion.

While speaking with the Asbury Park Press, AEW's Bryan Danielson revealed that he was surprised to be propelled to headline WrestleMania. The 40-year old star stated that he discussed his best potential final program with management since his contract was close to being up.

Bryan added that he didn't expect to be booked in the main event of the Grandest Stage of them all on his way out:

“The thing that surprised me the most (in 2021) was being inserted into the main event of WrestleMania,” said Danielson. “When I started the year, I knew my contract was ending and I was part of the creative team with WWE and I was like, ‘OK, what’s the best thing for me to do on my way out?’ And it was certainly not (being part of) the main event of WrestleMania”.

Bryan further said that he never thought of wrestling a match for an hour on national television this year:

"If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that I would do a 60-minute match on television, I would have been like, ‘Where’s that happening?’” Danielson said. “So I’ve had some really cool surprises this year.”

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Bryan Danielson had two time-limit draw matches since joining AEW

Bryan Danielson embarked on an undefeated streak to make an impressive start to his AEW career. However, that wouldn't have been possible if he didn't have one, but two, time-limit draw matches.

Danielson's match against Kenny Omega ended in a 30-minute draw on the Grand Slam episode of AEW Dynamite. Now fast forward to Winter is Coming last week, Bryan and Page failed to pin one another within an hour, thus leading to the same outcome.

It will be interesting to see how far AEW takes his winning streak and who they choose to hand the former WWE Superstar his first singles loss.

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