Bryan Danielson defeated NJPW World TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. in a singles contest at Sunday’s AEW WrestleDream 2023 pay-per-view event.
Following the match, Danielson raised referee Aubrey Edwards’ hand and hugged her to celebrate.
During the post-show media scrum, Danielson called Zack Sabre Jr. the better technical wrestler and discussed his moment with Aubrey.
You can check out some highlights from the media scrum below:
On his match with Zack Sabre Jr: “It’s really crazy to think of the person he was when I met him in 2008. Because there’s pictures on the Internet I’m sure, that people could see, of me and Zack and he looks like a skinny kid. And now he’s a man. And I would argue…One of the selling points of this match is that we’re going to find out who the best technical wrestler in the world is. And in theory the idea is that the winner of the match is the better technical wrestler. Being in the match, I won the match, but I am not convinced that I was the better technical wrestler. He was doing things that were quite frankly unbelievable and great, and I don’t know…my hand and wrist are super swollen right now.”
On how the match felt: “Sometimes I’m out there, and I would love to get an EKG on my brain when I’m wrestling because there’s the part that’s aggressive and you’re in it, but then there’s also the part where you’re just like, ‘Oh, I’m in awe of what he’s doing right now.’ It was a super cool match for me to have and I’m also very grateful because I’ve never had…not even a good match in Seattle. All my matches in WWE were short matches or whatever. When we came here in January I wrestled Tony Nese for like four-and-a-half minutes or something like that. To be able to do this match that I’ve wanted to do for so long, in front of this crowd, for an event like this that’s honoring Antonio Inoki. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”
On his moment with Aubrey Edwards: “That’s just…it’s just a cool moment. There’s not, in the history of professional wrestling, there haven’t been a lot of people from this area that make it big. And now we’re lucky in this company that we have multiple people…we’ve got Darby, we’ve got Swerve [Strickland], we’ve got Nick Wayne, we’ve got me, and we’ve got Aubrey, who has been there, and…been a fan and been invested in this. And for us to be able to share that moment…it wasn’t for anybody else, but for me and her, because she was, and I actually have never talked about her attachment to me and why she was crying, right? But the fact that she’s been on this journey with me, and then we got to have this moment together in Seattle because referees are a very important part of our matches, it felt special.”
