AEW's Bryan Danielson Reveals How Many Concussions He's Had and Talks Retirement

In an interview this week, AEW star Bryan Danielson discussed his concussion history and whether he believes he will ever wrestle again.

During an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet (beginning at the 46:50 mark), Danielson divulged that he hid a concussion from WWE during the build toward WrestleMania 30, which saw him beat Triple H in the opening match before defeating Randy Orton and Batista in the main event of become WWE champion:

Danielson also said he was dealing with neck issues at that time, and he went on to disclose that he has suffered 13 documented concussions over the course of his career.

While Danielson could not come up with an exact number of concussions he has sustained when taking undocumented head injuries into account, he noted that he suffered "probably too many" of them.

Danielson went on to discuss his in-ring future and whether he considers himself to be fully retired from wrestling. When asked by Van Vliet (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News) about retirement, Danielson stopped short of saying he would never wrestle again, but he also made it clear he could never be the same wrestler he once was.

"I hate the r‑word because I was forced to retire before," Danielson said. "I never consider myself fully retired. I think … this is how a lot of wrestlers think: 'Well, I think I could do this in this situation if needed or called upon.' But yeah—effectively, for the Bryan Danielson that I used to be, yeah, that guy doesn't exist anymore."

Danielson has not wrestled an official match since October 2024 when he dropped the AEW World Championship to Jon Moxley at WrestleDream and got attacked afterward.

The story of Danielson's title reign was that he would retire after losing the belt, although it was widely assumed Danielson would return to wrestle on at least a part-time basis at some point down the line.

However, Danielson suggested to Van Vliet that he has a different outlook since joining the AEW commentary team due to the toll the weekly travel has taken on his neck.

"So I have degeneration throughout my entire neck from C1 to T2," Danielson said. "I'm on the cusp of needing surgery. I'd really like to avoid it as much as possible. I'd like to never get neck surgery. I was actually doing really well until I started traveling more for commentary, and now it's really gone downhill.

"I had these delusions of, 'Okay, maybe I can get back and do a little bit of wrestling.' Now I see that they really are delusions, because this traveling is like … this is not a good idea."

At 44 years old, Danielson has already accomplished essentially everything possible within the realm of pro wrestling.

He held world titles in WWE, AEW and numerous other companies, and even participated in and won the main event of WrestleMania.

That doesn't mean the wrestling bug will ever leave Danielson, but based on his comments, he seems at least open to the possibility that his in-ring career is either over or will be severely limited compared to what it once was.