AEW's Bryan Danielson On The Personal Impact Of John Cena

AEW's Bryan Danielson shared the ring and backstage with John Cena and has revealed the 17-time world champion's legacy in pro wrestling ahead of Cena's retirement.

Danielson explained to "Z100" that Cena's legacy isn't defined by what he did in the ring, but by the compassion he showed outside of it, which truly stands out.

"I respect John a lot. One of the things that I love about John — and this story, I think, has been told a decent amount of times — but it's the charity stuff that he's done and never wanting acknowledgement for it," he said. "The first person to really put that in my mental space, and he didn't even say it to me, I just watched him do it, was John Cena. You look at all the stuff that he's done for kids and everything, and he did all that. He did more Make-A-Wishes than anybody ever, and he didn't want anybody to know."

The AEW star also recalled the wisdom that Cena shared with him after he struggled on television, which he considers another part of Cena's legacy.

"It's him giving me a better perspective and more compassion for myself when I didn't do my best when I main-evented my first pay-per-view in WWE, his perspective on that was, like, 'Listen, it can take six months for people to even know who you are, right? Just from being on TV. The hardcore wrestling fans will know who you are pretty quick, but the casual viewers who just watch every other week, or whatever it is, it takes them six months to even know you exist, right? And then even longer for people to see you as a main-event player, you know?"

Danielson also believes another part of Cena's legacy is his punctuality, recalling that Cena would always arrive at venues ahead of time, even before him, despite Danielson often getting there well before the scheduled call time.