Bryan Danielson is the odd combination of super aggressive world champion professional wrestler and reluctant, tree-hugging reality TV star. Danielson will be a headline performer when All Elite Wrestling comes to the Fort Bend Epicenter in Rosenberg for the first time on Wednesday, October 18.

The featured match is a 12-man battle royale with the survivor getting a shot at winning the Dynamite diamond ring. The matches will air live on TBS from 7-9 pm, so wear your school clothes. Tickets are available at All Elite Wrestling online.

Danielson, 42, made his wrestling debut as a teenager in 1999. One year later he was on the road to a Hall of Fame career, winning titles in every major wrestling promotion around the world. He signed with AEW in 2021 and currently is a member of the Blackpool Combat Club.

For non-wrestling fans, he is better known for marrying fellow reality TV star Brie Garciain 2014. They have two children: daughter Birdie Joe, aged 5, and son Buddy Dessert (now that's a name), aged 2.

As for the tree hugging, Danielson has often adopted and advocated for plant-based diets — even vegan protein shakes — a rarity in his sport and for tough, red-blooded guys like him.

I caught up with Danielson ahead of his event here.

CultureMap: You’ve wrestled for all the biggest wrestling companies. For those unfamiliar with All Elite Wrestling, what can they expect when they come to the AEW show Wednesday night in Rosenberg?

Bryan Danielson: You can expect a great entertaining show. You can expect a lot of great wrestling. We deliver some of the best wrestling in the entire world. I think that's the staple feature of AEW. We put the wrestling back in wrestling.

CM: You started wrestling at age 18. Are you aware that you’ve been a professional wrestler for more than half your life? Is your whole life one big ache and pain?

BD: Yes it is. Getting off the plane last night, I was super aware of how long I've wrestled.

CM: I've spoken to many wrestlers over the years. And one theme runs through all of them. When you start in the business you drive all night for a $25 paycheck. You get injured a lot. You're eating bad food at 3 o'clock in the morning. Yet every wrestler always says they love this sport. What is it about wrestling that you guys can't live without it?

BD: I can’t give you a scientific answer why I’m so addicted to wrestling. I think it's because of the energy and the dopamine levels that go into your brain when you’re getting ready for a wrestling match. Then there is the feedback you get when you're out there. There is the energy that you get from a live crowd. You’re center stage, everybody’s eyes are on you.

What we do is very physical. Getting hit and hitting the other guy while the fans are cheering is an incredible feeling. How it feels in your body and your mind, it’s very addictive.

CM: They say that a wrestler’s in-ring character is really just a magnified version of their real personality. How much of your wrestling character is the real-life you?

DB: It's really hard for me to tell and it's hard for me to differentiate between who I am in the ring and out of the ring. The aggression that I show in the ring is just my nature as a human being pumped up several times. I assume it's the same thing with acting. We put our soul out there. I'm not an actor. I go out there and I'm just who I am, only many, many times bigger.

CM: You're not an actor but you were featured on the reality series Total Bellas with your wife Brie Bella from 2016 to 2021. Were you comfortable on a stage that wasn’t a wrestling ring?

BD: Not really. I don't like being followed around by cameras. Like I've said, I really enjoy wrestling. For example, you're on TV for say 15 to 20 minutes of wrestling. And then you are done and you're no longer being filmed. That's how wrestling works. In reality TV it’s way different. You can be filmed for nearly an entire day, for multiple days in a row. That's really hard.

I will say this, the people behind reality TV are great fun, though. I developed a lot of great friendships on the show.

CM: You’re known for your interest in promoting environment causes. Is that from growing up in the Pacific Northwest?

BD: Where I grew up (in Aberdeen, Washington), it's kind of like a logging community. So I learned early that we are stewards of the environment. What I really developed as a child, and my parents were a big part of this, was a love of nature. And I think the love of nature is easily turned into environmentalism.

CM: You’re one of the few professional wrestlers who uses his real name in the ring. Is that a good idea?

BD: It is and it isn’t. It's good in the sense of marketing yourself outside of professional wrestling. I can be Bryan Danielson and go sell whatever it is that some company, say, Hanes has Danielson underwear, wants me to promote. I can do whatever comes up that I want to do. If I didn’t use my real name, I’d have to ask permission from the company I work for, and they’d probably get a piece of the pie.

From a privacy perspective, using my real name may not be the smartest thing in the world.

CM: While you may not be an actor, you’re still a celebrity. Can you go to parents night at school or shop at the local supermarket without be recognized by fans?

BD: I’m here in Memphis today and I probably took photos with four or five different groups of people at breakfast. So there are times when it feels like I'm a celebrity. At home, I certainly do not feel like a celebrity.

CM: You were a teenager when you left your home in Washington State and enrolled in a wrestling school in San Antonio. That took a lot of determination and guts. Were you scared?

BD: It was great. I moved to San Antonio when I was 18 years old. It was really cool. It was a real culture shock, too. To be honest, I was scared to death my first night in San Antonio. My apartment wasn’t ready so I was sleeping in my car in a grocery store parking lot. Around 11 p.m. or so, all these cars on the street were honking their horns like crazy and people were yelling out their windows.

A cop knocked on my door and told me I couldn’t sleep in my car there. I said I was sorry and I’d move. I asked him if it was normal for everybody to be going nuts at night in San Antonio. Is this what big cities are like? He said, no, the San Antonio Spurs had just won their first NBA championship. It just happened to be the first night I got into town.

CM: Wrestlers like The Rock and John Cena have become big movie stars. Do you have dreams of following them to Hollywood?

BD: None whatsoever. I think if you love that sort of thing, if you love acting and you want to pursue that, it’s great. But I have no interest in acting and I have very little interest in celebrity. So I'd like to my thing as a wrestler for as long as I can. When it’s done, I’m going to just disappear.

CM: Several years ago, you created the “Yes Movement” and your catchphrase was shouting the word “yes” over and over. It caught on outside of wrestling and pro sports teams adopted your celebration. What was it like knowing that stadiums packed with 50,000 fans were screaming “yes?”

BD: It was mind-blowing. The weirdest thing of all was when the San Francisco Giants started using the “yes” chant and they won the World Series in 2014. They invited me to be in their World Series parade. I remember being on a firetruck or some sort of bus and it was incredibly surreal.

CM: One last question and it’s something I’ve always wondered about. What is the one wrestling maneuver that hurts the most?

BD: There is one move that, as I get older, sucks every time I do it. It’s when I jump off the top rope and kick my opponent in his face. I end up falling directly on my back from a very high position.

Every time it happens, I’m like, why did I just do that? Actually I do know why. It’s because fans love it.