Bryan Danielson didn’t know what to make of Zack Sabre Jr. the first time he wrestled him.
The two were set to square off at a Triple X show in Europe in front of about 50 people in March 2008, with Danielson at the height of his Ring of Honor fame and Sabre at 20-year-old prospect just four years into the business.
Danielson saw a “really, really skinny” kid and was initially happy to play his greatest hits for the fans and give them a quality match as he “wasn’t expecting much” from his opponent “because he was really shy.”
Then, the match started.
“I’m out there and I am wrestling with him and I’m like ‘Oh he’s good,’” Danielson said. “Then I push him a little bit more and I push him a little bit more. He starts pushing back. That’s when I realized there’s something special about him. He’s proven that time and time again since that time. Being in there with him and feeling it, I thought then this kid can be something special.”
They wrestled just one more time after that in 2009, also in Europe at Westside Xtreme Wrestling, and split the first two meetings.
But the admiration never stopped.
Danielson, then retired from in-ring action due to concussions, remembers watching Sabre compete in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic — for which he was a commentator.
He was in awe of Sabre’s development and believed at the time he was a “better technical wrestler than I am.”
“I’d be like, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?” Danielson said. “When I was in WWE, a lot of the technical wrestling [Sabre was doing] wasn’t conducive to that style of technical wrestling. But when I was on the independents, I did a lot of that stuff. I would just be blown away by what Zack was doing and I continue to be blown away to this day.”
Things led to a scheduled rematch, something that always intrigued Danielson as wrestling fans began to debate who was the best technical wrestler in the world between them.
The two were supposed to face off at the first Forbidden Door pay-per-view in 2022, but an injury kept Danielson from competing.
The debate finally will be settled in the likely main event of AEW’s first-ever WrestleDream pay-per-view — which will honor the legacy of Antonio Inoki — from Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Sunday (8 p.m., Bleacher Report).
Sabre, 36, has gone on to have a fruitful career in New Japan Pro Wrestling and the independents and is the inaugural NJPW World Television champion.
Danielson, 42, enjoys the fact that they both bring an intensity to technical wrestling that makes it more than the “fancy stuff’ of hold, counters and transitions some fans might expect.
“It’s how do you break somebody’s wrist, legitimately,” Danielson said. “I know he grapples legitimately. I like to grapple legitimately. It’s knowing how the body works and knowing how you can contort a body and how you can bend and break things and hurt people.
“I think that’s what makes it work in 2023. If it was just transitioning from move to move in a technical way it wouldn’t be appealing to people because that’s not what pro wrestling is in the modern age. Neither of us would be where we are if he hadn’t learned to make the technical aspects of wrestling very aggressive.”
The match will be the first one Danielson will be fully cleared for after returning early from the broken arm he suffered against Kazuchika Okada at Forbidden Door in June to face Ricky Starks in a strap match at All Out in September after CM Punk’s firing.
Danielson said he has had to do more violent gimmick matches, such as the Texas Deathmatch with Starks on Collision last week because it made it easier for him to protect his arm and because he likes wrestling different styles.
He’s happy with how they turned out because the brawling style allowed Starks to display his heart and left him “more connected to the audience” because of it.
The restrictions Danielson worked under during those matches are off for Sunday as he is “fully cleared,” but he knows he still needs to be careful as he continues to rehab.
“Our doctors would still not like me to do certain things, but from like two weeks ago when I had the tag match the strength in my hand is coming back way faster than they thought it would, the mobility and all that stuff,” Danielson said. “I still have to be cautious probably for the next year or so. They put a steel rod in my arm. One of the things they said is that it actually makes it more likely to break not where it broke before, but where the end of the rod is. It’s like a fulcrum for the bone to bend against.”
That caution is even more critical now as Danielson is getting set to bring the full-time portion of his wrestling career, which began in 1999, to an end.
He announced on the Sept. 8 episode of “AEW: Collision” that he promised his daughter, Birdie, that he would wind down his wrestling career when she turned 7 in May 2024.
Danielson, who was re-reading “The Odyessy” while injured, likened it to Odysseus trying to return to this family after The Trojan War and avoiding any pitiful along the way.
“[It’s] so when I’m done with this full-time wrestling I can be there for my family the way that I want to be there,” Danielson said. “Like don’t do anything stupid in your last year so when you come home you’re not the same.”
He said there are some things that he’d like to do before that time, but is “not attached to anything.”
For him, the next year is about being present and enjoying whatever matches he does have — something he’s always looked at as a gift since coming out of retirement in 2018 and maybe even more so now that there is a true end date in sight.
“Not only just the matches, just being around people in the back because this is gonna be my last year being around them every week and I love these people,” Danielson said. “Pro wrestlers a lot of times have very unique perspectives on the world and it’s a unique atmosphere to be around. It’s not taking any of the matches for granted and not taking any of the people for granted because they brought so much joy to my life.”
One of those special matches was an hour-long Iron Man match with MJF for the AEW world champions at the Revolution pay-per-view last May.
Danielson was left impressed with the 27-year-old champ’s ability to match his intensity in their first-ever meeting when sometimes you see young talent wilt or fire up in those moments.
“Max doesn’t wilt,” Danielson said. “OK you want to get intense, he’ll get intense with you. Despite his persona and all that kind of stuff, he has some pretty impressive athletic credentials so he’s not someone who backs away from pain or anything like that. He loves wrestling and he wants to go out there and put out the best show possible.”
That’s exactly what Danielson and Sabre will try to do in the main event Sunday in Danielson’s home state in a dream match that will finally settle the debate.
“Amongst a lot of wrestling fans they like to argue who is a better technical wrestler between me and Zach Sabre Jr,” Danielson said.
“Now, I think we’re gonna find out on Sunday.”
