AEW says Bryan Danielson’s undergone surgery, leaves door open for return this year

It seems AEW kept Bryan Danielson’s broken orbital bone a secret for as long as a week, with reports indicating it happened on the Oct. 21 Collision before the storyline explanation was booked for the main event of Oct. 25’s Dynamite, and the announcement of the injury coming on last Saturday’s Collision.

That announcement included that Danielson would be getting surgery, and that he was expected to spend the rest of the year on the injured list as a result. Speculation was the recovery time could even keep him from one of his personal dream matches — working New Japan’s annual Jan. 4 Tokyo Dome extravaganza, Wrestle Kingdom.

But the “AEW Control Center” video hyping Dynamite tonight (Nov. 1) has another update on the American Dragon, and this one is subtly but perhaps crucially different. At the 5:50 mark, Tony Schiavone informs us Bryan’s already had surgery. He also says the 42 year old be “be out until later in the year.”

“Later in the year” is obviously different from “the rest of the year”, and provides some hope Danielson could be back not only for Wrestle Kingdom but possibly even AEW’s own Worlds End PPV on Dec. 30.

We shall see.