Bryan Danielson has revealed his daughter Birdie feared for her mum Brie Bella’s life during this year’s Royal Rumble.
The star – who left Vince McMahon’s company in April 2021 and – has recalled his wife’s triumphant return in January’s Rumble match, which their four-year-old girl was able to watch first hand.
He exclusively told Metro.co.uk: ‘There was also this period where Ronda Rousey was beating up Brie in the corner. I was in bed with our daughter cuddling her before she goes to sleep and I said, “Oh sweet girl, did you have so much fun?”
‘She goes, “Yeah… but I was scared Momma might pass away!” I was like, oh my god! “No, no, no sweet girl, they’re just playing!” It broke my heart a little bit!’
Unfortunately for Brie, she didn’t get the same response from their daughter, who immediately gave her mum a telling off after the match .
‘Oh that was fun! It was so cool! But also, the coolest thing was our daughter got to go with her,’ Danielson said of his wife’s in-ring return. ‘I stayed hoe with our son and our daughter was able to go with her.
‘Our daughter’s seen Brie wrestle before, but she doesn’t remember it. This is something that she’ll remember.
‘And it’s so funny. Brie eliminated Nicole from the Royal Rumble, and came back and the first thing our daughter said to her – she calls Nicole “Dodo”, she goes, “You need to apologise to Dodo!” ‘
It’s clear Birdie got into the action, and Danielson admitted he would be open to either of their children following in their parents’ footsteps by pursuing a career in pro wrestling.
‘I’d for sure be supportive of it. But it depends on the reason why they’re going into it. If they’re going into it, “Oh we’re got a name, let’s do a quick money grab,”‘ he laughed. ‘Wrestling’s probably not worth that, you get beat up to much!’
He pointed to the way his own outlook differs from stars like Kevin Nash from ‘the previous generation’, who were more influenced by the payday.
‘In the back of my head, I’ve always thought, “Money’s not that important”. I grew up relatively poor and obviously to a certain level you need money,’ he admitted.
‘But the idea was, man, if I can pursue something that just makes me happy, that I really enjoy, even if I don’t make a tonne of money, that’s great.
‘That would be my advice to my daughter and son. If you’re pursuing it from a real sense of, “I think this would be fun or interesting or something I really wanna pursue”, I’d be fully supportive of that.’
When it comes down to it, Bryan’s wish for his children is that they grow up to find something they care about as much as he lives for wrestling.
‘It doesn’t matter if that’s wrestling, it doesn’t matter if it’s marine biology, if doesn’t matter if it’s painting, it doesn’t matter if it’s mowing lawns and working on people’s yards,’ he chuckled.
‘Part of me, if it paid better, I’d be picking strawberries, you know what I mean? The most inefficient strawberry-picker ever because I’d pick a few, eat a few, id’ go slow, take a nap, so I probably wouldn’t be paid very well.’
He added: ‘All I really want for them is find something that they love as much as I love wrestling.’
AEW Dynamite (Wednesdays) and Rampage (Fridays) air on Fite TV.
