Bryan Danielson and CM Punk are two of the biggest stars of their generation. They were two smaller men who excelled on the independent scene and broke the mould in WWE. They rose above a company that didn’t appreciate their skills and talent, and became World Champions and future Hall of Famers in their career.
CM Punk was one of the longest reigning WWE Champions of all time, with his 434 day reign between 2011 and 2013. Danielson, then known as Daniel Bryan, main event Wrestlemania twice, in 2014 and 2021, and came back from a career-ending brain injury to win the WWE Championship one more time in 2018.
Both men have shown huge admiration for each other’s ability in the ring. Danielson has remarked that he thought Bryan Danielson vs CM Punk should have taken place at Wrestlemania, but WWE never booked such a match.
“I’ve always thought, and said this even when I was in WWE, it felt to me like Punk and I were destined to do a Wrestlemania match and then it just never happened.”
“It felt like, ‘Man, it’s so perfect and it makes so much sense that we would have this Wrestlemania match against each other.’ And it never happened. “
“But now, given the time of how long it’s been since we’ve been in a ring against each other or even as a tag team, now I feel like when we do it, it’ll be big. And it will be big in a different way.” Danielson said.
CM Punk meets Bryan Danielson
However, the relationship between CM Punk and Bryan Danielson did not start off in the best of ways. Danielson revealed in his book Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania, that the same night he first met CM Punk in 2002, he was rushed to the hospital with a fractured skull that could have very dangerous for the current AEW star.
“I first met Punk in 2002 at a sixteen-man tournament called the Jersey J Cup. I’d heard about him and Colt Cabana because the two of them were tearing up the Midwest independent scene, but had yet to meet either of them.”
“At the show, we exchanged a passing hello, but there were several different locker rooms, and Punk was changing in a different one than I was, so we never really got a chance to chat. All of a sudden, after his second-round match with Reckless Youth, I saw both Punk and Cabana rushing out of the building in the middle of the show.”
“It turned out that Punk had fractured his skull during the match and had to head to the hospital immediately. Fractured skulls, kids: That’s one of the many reasons you don’t try this stuff at home.”
Luckily CM Punk managed to recover from his injuries and forged a career that many would envy. He became a star in WWE, but walked out on the promotion in 2014 with reasons he revealed in the CM Punk Colt Cabana podcast.
He stayed away from wrestling for 7 year. CM Punk returned to wrestling in August 2021, debut in AEW in what was CM Punk’s favourite moment in wrestling. He and Danielson both wrestling in AEW now and fans are excited to see these two face each other for the first time in ten years.
When was the last CM Punk vs Bryan Danielson match
CM Punk last wrested Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank 2012. The match was a no-disqualification match between the pair and refereed by Daniel Bryan’s on-screen girlfriend AJ Lee. It saw CM Punk defeat Bryan to defend his WWE Championship in a 27 minute match that was one of the best matches of the year.
The last time the pair wrestled together was actually a tag team match. At Survivor Series 2013, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan teamed together as “The Best and The Beard” to take on the Wyatt Family (Erick Rowan and Luke Harper). The team of Punk and Bryan would win that match after 17 minutes, and would be the last time each man shared the ring.
They would have wrestled together at the 2014 Royal Rumble, but Daniel Bryan was famously not included in the match which caused the crowd to hijack the match and boo everyone out of the building.
