Dave Meltzer Gives AEW Announce Team Update, Thinks Bryan Danielson Will Wrestle Again

Former AEW World Champion Bryan Danielson is back on television as part of the "AEW Dynamite" commentary team, with his first full episode as an announcer coming on September 10. Danielson took the place of long-time AEW announcer Tony Schiavone, and while this looks to be a permanent move going forward, Dave Meltzer clarified on "Wrestling Observer Radio" that Schiavone will still feature on Wednesday nights, and will keep his role as the play-by-play announcer for "AEW Collision."

"Tony Schiavone was there, he's doing interviews, but no longer on the announcing team so that's the replacement. It's fresh, it's new, Tony Schiavone will still be announcing on Collision so it's not like he's going away from announcing." Meltzer noted that he was a fan of Danielson's commentary during AEW's recent trip to the United Kingdom, which was ultimately the reason he is now on the "Dynamite" commentary team as many other people were impressed by his work as well. 

Now that Danielson is back on TV permanently, the question of whether he will return to the ring will always pop up. He officially retired from full-time wrestling at AEW WrestleDream 2024, but left the door open for sporadic appearances, and Meltzer can certainly see Danielson getting back in the ring, even if it's on smaller independent shows.

"I think that he's very comfortable with the idea that he's not going to wrestle again in a major way. I mean I believe he will wrestle again at some point...he's openly talked about the idea of doing indie shows because he said he can fool around and have fun and do indie shows. He said the style of wrestling in AEW is such that he doesn't think that he could go out there and work at that level, and he doesn't want to be the guy who lives on his rep, and also physically, his neck's not in good shape. He didn't have the surgery." Meltzer rounded off by saying that if Danielson had gone under the knife and had neck surgery, he doesn't know if he would have been able to come back at all.

Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.