After his contract expired with WWE, Bryan Danielson (formerly known as Daniel Bryan) made the leap to AEW. He appears to be extremely happy with his new home, and while the former WWE Champion has only spoken positively about Vince McMahon and company, he did recently share his thoughts on the latest wave of talent releases.
When WWE releases someone, it's with a 90-day non-compete that means they have to sit at home for three months. It's also no secret that unhappy wrestlers (like the late Luke Harper/Brodie Lee) have been forced to remain on the bunch for even longer than that, wasting their careers until they can finally head elsewhere.
In Danielson's opinion, something needs to change. "I feel like it’s not right. It’s hard because my father-in-law is the head of talent relations. One of the things that I’ve always had a hard time with, and I’ve been fired from WWE twice so I kind of get this – it’s one thing if somebody does something bad but like for example, if you’re under a contract with WWE and you’re not happy or you’re not happy with the company or whatever it is, if they can fire you and give you 90 days [then] you should be able to give them 90 days to be released from your contract."
"On the flip side, if they are only firing you because of budget cuts where they are more profitable than ever, I just don’t think that’s right," he continued. "They signed a lot of people to high end contracts when AEW kind of started to keep people from going to AEW or whatever. But then they realized, ‘Oh, AEW can’t sign all of these people...'"
Danielson went on to say he feels it's wrong WWE is releasing talent when they're at their most profitable, but understands that's just corporate America in 2021 to some extent as well.
Regardless, it's hard to disagree with anything he says here, and it would make sense to allow wrestlers to give notice like this. Unfortunately, we don't think it will ever happen, and if it did, WWE might find they have a very depleted roster. You can watch the full interview in the player below: