Kyle O’Reilly Names Top AEW Star He Wants A Match Against
AEW wrestler Kyle O'Reilly appeared on SiriusXM's Busted Open Radio just hours after he faced Jungle Boy one-on-one on Dynamite in Pittsburgh, PA.
O'Reilly picked up the win against one-half of the AEW Tag Team Champions, to officially advance to the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. Looking ahead to the future, the former Ring of Honor Champion revealed a dream match that he would like to have while working for All Elite Wrestling.
"A guy who I've wanted to wrestle my entire career is Bryan Danielson," O'Reilly said. "I broke in, in '05 and he, at that time, was having this epic run with the ROH Title. He inspired me to want to make it to ROH. He was going over to Japan and making a living there, so that inspired me to want to follow that path.
"He always worked a very similar hybrid style, as you put it, which I totally agree with that definition of it because it's very much a hybrid style. It's whatever you want it to be. It's kicks, it's strikes, submissions mixed with professional wrestling, which is a style of its own.
"Certainly with Danielson. And now he's teamed up with Mox, I think it'd be an amazing tag match as well. There are a ton of guys in AEW I'd really love to wrestle. I think it's a very deep roster, so there's no shortage of dream matches from where I'm standing."
Kyle O'Reilly also disclosed the feelings he felt when he joined AEW in December 2021, after leaving WWE just days prior due to the expiration of his contract.
"So many of the guys in AEW, it was kind of like a reunion or a homecoming," Kyle said. "Guys I want to Japan with, or who I was in Ring of Honor, or in the independents with now run this huge platform together. I never had the luxury of making it to the main roster [in WWE], so I didn't really get that experience.
"So coming over here, it feels like I'm having that main roster run now, because it's a major show, it's huge. I'm traveling to a different city every week. It feels now like, 'oh,' it feels like now I'm in the big leagues."
O'Reilly stated that he will always look back fondly on his time with Vince McMahon's company, and noted that his tenure made him a better performer.
"I look at it so fondly," Kyle O'Reilly said. "I truly believe that I am ten times the performer now than I was before getting signed to WWE. I am way more polished, I have way more confidence, with a microphone.
"I know my role better, I know how to work a main event match, I know how to work tag matches better, I have better psychology now, I feel. I wouldn't change anything about this journey to where I'm at now."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit SiriusXM's Busted Open Radio with an h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.