Bryan Danielson suddenly name-drops top WWE stars as some of his wrestling soulmates

Bryan Danielson has been a part of AEW since his thunderous debut at All Out four years ago, leaving WWE in his rearview following an exceptional run. However, The American Dragon recently namedropped two top stars from the Stamford-based promotion as his "wrestling soulmates."

The aforementioned wrestlers, who are former multi-time WWE Champions, are Randy Orton and AJ Styles. Bryan Danielson had captivating feuds with both superstars during his time as an in-ring performer. He lost the WWE Championship to Randy Orton at the 2013 SummerSlam event. Interestingly, he had beaten AJ Styles for the same title five years later on an episode of SmackDown and, shockingly, turned heel that night.

In a recent interview with Nick Stav to promote AEW's upcoming shows in Australia, Danielson was asked about his wrestling soulmates. He chose six names, out of which four were AEW stars: "Hangman" Adam Page, Jon Moxley, Nigel McGuinness, and Claudio Castagnoli. Surprisingly, he also picked two names from WWE, first mentioning Randy Orton, calling him one of his favorite opponents.

"In WWE, one of my favorite opponents was Randy Orton, and I always feel like our best matches were never on TV. Our best matches were on these live events."

Furthermore, Danielson then picked The Phenomenal AJ Styles, simply calling him fantastic.

"And then AJ Styles. AJ Styles is fantastic."

AEW star Bryan Danielson takes shots at WWE

Despite picking two names from WWE as some of his favorite opponents, Bryan Danielson did not hesitate to take shots at his former promotion. He went on to say that he finds World Wrestling Entertainment to be a parody of professional wrestling at times.

"Listen, I’m not afraid to be critical of a creative process. When I was in WWE I would say like, ‘Okay sometimes this feels like a parody of wrestling to me.’ I wrote that in my book that was put out by WWE. WWE seems like a parody of wrestling to me at times. I thought the last several months of AEW have been really good," said Danielson. [H/T: NoDQ]

Moreover, it was announced that Danielson has now joined the AEW commentary booth as a full-time commentator. So, it will be interesting to see if he can thrive in his new role in the company.

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If you use quotes from the first part of this article, please credit Nick Stav and give an H/T to Sportskeeda for the transcription.