During an appearance on Throwing Down, Bryan Danielson spoke about how his mindset changed after coming out of retirement.

“When I was forced to retire, what it really made me think is I don’t want to take any of this for granted. I don’t want to go out there at all and just go through the motions.”

“We’re all putting ourselves out there. Our careers can end any night. I didn’t know before I was forced to retire that the last match I had before that was going to be my last match.”

“My mentality going into all of it is to really try to appreciate that, especially as I’m getting like 15-20 minutes before I go out there. Like, ‘Hey, this could be it.’ Not in a bad way, but hey, this could be it, so just go out there and have fun.”

‘There’s a certain amount of confidence that you have to have to be able to do that. I’m not worried about going out there, and like, ‘Oh man, people are really going to hate this.’ I don’t think about that kind of stuff. I go out there, and I’m like, I’ve been dreaming about doing this ever since I was a kid, and now I’ve been doing it longer than I’ve dreamed of doing it. Now it’s just fun and it’s just joy. Now it’s going out there and feeling the energy. What I’m doing now as a bad guy, professionally for me, is the funnest.”