In November of 2023, I went to see The 1975 perform at Madison Square Garden as part of their “Still… At Their Very Best” tour. It was a follow-up to their previous tour the year before also titled “At Their Very Best.” It’s an experience, something greater than just a concert and somehow topping the shows from the critically acclaimed tour that came before it. Constructed in such a way to make everything hit at the perfect moment, an intimate performance that made you feel like you were a part of everything they did. The emotional and vulnerable moments with newer songs like “About You” leading into these grand and joyful celebrations with their older greatest hits like “The Sound” and “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know).” There’s an art to it beyond just the music, a presence they have set with the environment they created. Being in a house surrounded by furniture, lamps, and television sets, letting the fans in on a deeper level that connects with every one of them. It’s live proof of their longevity. How even after already releasing some of their greatest work, they come back just to make something even greater.  The title of the tour appropriately fit, you were watching The 1975 perform, after over ten years, still… at their very best.

As frontman Matty Healy has said, “we just keep getting better and better.”

In September of 2023, Bryan Danielson returned from an injury he sustained just three months before much sooner than fans thought he would, as he signed a contract to face Ricky Starks in a strap match at All Elite Wrestling’s PPV “All Out” the following night. Despite any doubt on how soon he’d come back, seeing Bryan Danielson return from any sort of injury wasn’t anything new. Neither was stealing the show, as he’d have arguably the best match of the year in a day’s notice.

For years “The Final Countdown” was just another corny power-rock song my dad would listen to along with the likes of “Eye of the Tiger” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” But finally getting to see him make his entrance to that song, it’s almost euphoric. Even just rewatching it, it evokes that same feeling in my body that I had watching The 1975 perform “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” like I wanted to jump up, dance, scream, then run through a brick wall. And his performance in that match gives you nothing short of the same feeling you’d get from that entrance. After a whole summer without him, everything still felt perfectly in place despite the fact that Ricky Starks was supposed to be facing off against CM Punk after a multiple months long feud with him, and in that same match making Starks even bigger of a star than he had been throughout his feud with Punk.

This was the first time in his AEW run that Bryan Danielson would have to take time off (one of two times in 2023), and overall probably the 500th in his career as a whole. It has been years and years going through a rollercoaster of emotions with Bryan and his injuries, ask any fan of his and they’ll agree. It didn’t take long either, as in 2007 we’d get the first of many dangerous injuries from his bout against Takeshi Morishima at Ring Of Honor’s “Manhattan Mayhem II.” Morishima throws these insane clubbing blows that actually detaches Bryan’s retina only minutes into it.

To take a look at the bigger picture, it’s incredible and terrifying when you think about it. How he was at risk of literally losing an eye and even facing an early retirement. It sounds funny thinking about it now and how things played out considering how this would barely be anything serious compared to later injuries, but the fact that it could’ve just been the closing moments for Danielson’s career only in 2007 is horrifying knowing what we’d miss out on.

Of course, being the freak he is, Bryan decided to keep going and it would become part of the storyline between Bryan and Morishima as they go into ROH’s “Man Up” event where Morishima simply wins again by bashing Danielson’s head in and throwing repeated forearms at his arm. But in the goddamn beating Bryan suffers in their bouts, he really helps in making Morishima the great monster champion he was. The way he kicks and goes after his legs to try and topple the beast, being the most sympathetic babyface in the world which only makes Morishima look like even more of a menacing, inevitable figure. Like I said with his bout against Ricky Starks, Danielson gives an incredible performance that only elevates his opponent.

It’s hard to pinpoint just a handful of feuds or matches in particular from Danielson’s run in ROH given how great it was and how it’s spoken of so highly to this day. If there’s one to be named it’s most likely against Nigel McGuinness not just for how good their matches were, but for the fact that they both beat each other’s brain into steel ring posts and would start a chain of concussions. But it came with Nigel’s need of not just wanting to be the champion or to be able to call himself the best, but to be viewed as the best and have that undeniable respect and recognition from the crowd as the best that Bryan Danielson had. He made the case for himself as an actual “best in the world” wrestler just five years into his career, and that’s with six years still left to his independent run. And a few months extra due to the fact that he’d get fired from WWE after a very short time for actually choking out ring announcer Justin Roberts as part of the Nexus’ debut and invasion (which was really funny honestly) before getting rehired very soon after because why the fuck would you not keep the best in the world on your roster?

Unfortunately, with repetitive concussions and more that came with his run in WWE, we’d be faced with another obstacle and one that seemed impossible to ever get past.

On the February 8th, 2016 edition of WWE Monday Night Raw, Bryan Danielson announced his retirement after not being cleared to wrestle permanently by WWE’s medical team. Honestly, not much to say besides the fact that it sucked so goddamn much. After spending recent time on and off from multiple concussions that even cut his long overdue WWE title run, he had to stop altogether. Despite the big moments like his championship win at WrestleMania 30, the great matches he had, it felt like we were still being robbed off so much. No matter how much we got from his run in WWE at that time, it didn’t feel like nearly enough by this time. I sat with my family in our living room as we all watched his speech, half of us in tears by it. It didn’t feel like it was his time to call it quits at all. But thank god, it wasn’t.

On March 20th, 2018, Bryan Danielson announced his return to the ring. And as part of an ongoing storyline involving two other greats in Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens as well as Shane McMahon. Our hero was back, and it didn’t matter much what he was doing (although I wasn’t dying to see him face the Miz after three years without him) because we were just happy to have him in the ring again. But luckily, we got probably the most unexpected thing since his big babyface comeback; a heel turn. And after seven months it really felt like he was back in his element. The way he’d grip his opponent’s wrists and stomp their heads in, calling people “fickle” while he forces everyone to be environmentally friendly in the most dickhead way possible. It feels as if Danielson felt his return was way long overdue considering how many stellar performances he gives once he returns.

The solid TV matches against AJ Styles were nice to build to his heel turn, but once the proper WWE title run starts there’s nothing short of greatness. You can argue that his match with Brock Lesnar can be a little odd considering it’s a heel against heel bout despite the obvious setup of “all-time great bully vs all-time underdog babyface” but at the same time, I don’t care. It’s simply too good to worry about any of WWE’s improper set-up of this match (it’s also funny that his first big match of his title reign is a match where he has to take German suplexes on the back of his head after famously coming back from countless concussions). Though it’s incredible to see how his reign starts off with something like this compared to how it ends, the differences in stellar performances and how well he pulls it off being on the opposite side of things in his match with Kofi Kingston at WrestleMania 35.

It’s the adaptation he makes to become the most unlikeable person after being beloved by fans for years and years that makes Kofi be even bigger of a babyface. No shade to Kingston, he’s a great wrestler and definitely kicked into something higher with his push and this match. But it’s yet another instance where Bryan is just so goddamn smart in knowing how to make you feel what you should when you watch wrestling. Even in settings like the horridly boring and lifeless performance center and thunderdome during the pandemic, he was able to perform at such a high caliber in his matches with AJ Styles and Roman Reigns. Again, it’s the ability to adapt and somehow perform in a way that others couldn’t whatsoever, excelling in an environment that constantly worked against him through sheer talent. And when the crowd’s finally came back, he made the biggest change possible. No more of WWE’s Daniel Bryan. With COVID-19 restrictions dying down and fans in anticipation of what would be next for Bryan after leaving WWE after ten years, it was time for something old to be turned into something new, a new life brought into his career. The return of the American Dragon.

Honest to God, I don’t think AEW would be as great as it has been or proven to be without Bryan Danielson. And he didn’t even really need it either as he was already considered the best to ever do it and was already having a great in-ring year from his last bit of time in WWE, but it still felt like a rejuvenation for Bryan and his career. From the moment he showed up at All Out in 2021, he’s been a key part of almost every major angle and match stipulation they’ve set up. It was bigger than just him, it was an actual shift in the world of professional wrestling and the business itself. Having that initial dream rematch with Kenny Omega at Arthur Ashe, being Hangman Page’s first obstacle in his AEW World title reign, forming the company’s most notable faction in the Blackpool Combat Club with Jon Moxley at Revolution in 2022, and being a part of the first Anarchy In The Arena match. And that’s all within the first year of him being there. Without ever holding a single title (damn you Danielson, stop being a nice guy and win the big one) he’s had the same importance as a champion. And arguably at times, feels like a bigger deal than the actual world champion on the show.

But watching this run in real-time has felt like something much more personal to me. Unfortunately for me, I was only five years old when Danielson was Ring Of Honor champion, doing their shows that were all within an hour radius of me which makes it even worse. And by the time my eyes were opened up to wrestling outside of the WWE, Bryan had already made his debut there. I’ve only ever gotten to watch Bryan like this after it’s already happened, seeing everything is retrospect and searching through every possible video platform on the internet to find more of his work (legally of course), only ever getting to wonder “wow, it probably felt so cool to be there when he’d come out to Final Countdown.” Taking how I felt about The 1975 and their return after the pandemic to perform at such a high level and make an even stronger case for being one of this generation’s greatest artists, I feel the same can be said about Danielson and the run he has been on the last three years. So to be able to finally watch him as the American Dragon, still being the best wrestler alive after 25 years, it’s something I’m grateful for.

With “The Final Countdown” returning as his theme at AEW & New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Forbidden Door event in 2023, it had to come with a downside as Danielson would break his arm mid-match. Even before announcing this would be his last full-time year, it still felt so frustrating seeing him get significantly hurt when you know there isn’t much time left in general. But like I said, this would only be the first time he suffers an injury in 2023. Soon after the strap match with Ricky Starks, he breaks his orbital bone in a match with Andrade El Idolo. Which would be the second time this year that there’d be tons of articles speaking about how Danielson seems to be out of the ring for the remainder of the year.

But again, because he is a freak, returns barely two months later as only he would. Broken arm, broken orbital bone, and all. Similar to his own words about returning from injury stronger than before and those of the 1975’s Matty Healy, he just kept getting better and better.

As we come closer to the real ending to it, there’s some comfort in knowing that Danielson may never really retire. Again, it’s only his last year wrestling full-time, and he’s said multiple times now that he doesn’t think he’ll ever fully retire. And it’s nice to know that it’s on his own terms now, and not due to an injury like it has been over the years. But it feels somewhat bittersweet at the moment. I watch him wrestle almost twice every week and every time there’s something to remember. And then he goes and cuts a promo about his career, and I’m reminded of the fact that it won’t be like this forever. It’s almost not fair how good he is just looking back on the last year since that match with Ricky Starks at All Out, but it truly feels like a gift given to the fans by Danielson himself knowing this is the last we’ll get of him so frequently. Every time he finds a way to pull you in and buy into every moment of a match and the story he builds within it. How at such a late point in his career, he’s capable of doing things in a way no other wrestler can replicate. The simplistic yet incredibly compelling in-ring storytelling of his matches with Eddie Kingston serves as a testament to how great and intelligent the two are. The blood-relishing fights like his matchup with RUSH, the technical showcases with Hechicero and Zack Sabre Jr., it all feels as if we’re too lucky. Even in matches of less notoriety like ones against Shane Taylor, Kyle Fletcher, and Satnam Singh there’s something to grab onto that makes the match so much more than just another win for him.

But no matter what he’s doing or who he’s facing, you’re glued to the screen to see what he’s going to bring out against his newest opponent and what he’s going to bring out of them. And you will sit there and know that you are watching Bryan Danielson, still… at his very best.

Go check out the rest of Wet Hot American Dragon here.